Lights, camera... art!

VERY few Singapore artists can capture reality like Chua Mia Tee can. For proof, just look at his 1970s sketches and paintings of Singapore politicians such as Lee Kuan Yew, Goh Chok Tong, Ong Teng Cheong, S Rajaratnam, Dr Ahmad Mattar, Dr Yeoh Ghim Seng, Toh Chin Chye and others.

Whether they're rendered in oil or charcoal, these men's features, personalities and mannerisms are accurately captured by Chua: One sketch portrays, in very economical pencil strokes, the charming grin of former prime minister Goh.

Another depicts the earnest demeanour of former president Ong speaking in the second session of the fourth Parliament in 1978.

Chua's realist artworks are celebrated in a new National Gallery Singapore exhibition which opens on Nov 26 - just one day after he turns 90. The exhibition features over 50 artworks as well as archival materials, filmic recordings and quotes from the artist's writings. They stretch all the way from the 1950s to the present time.

The exhibition title, Chua Mia Tee: Directing The Real, is a nod to how Chua's realist art often approximates photography and cinema. Chua himself has likened the role as an artist to that of a filmmaker. "The painter assumes the role of scriptwriter, director and actor," pouring emotions and subjectivity into the scene, Chua said in an interview once.

Unvarnished images

In one of his most famous paintings titled Workers In A Canteen (1974), a large group of workers are shown eating in a canteen. In the centre of the painting is a man who is half-seated and half-standing, talking to his colleagues.

But what's daring about the painting is the fact that the central figure has his back turned towards us, so that we cannot see his face. Meanwhile, most of the other workers have their heads down, chomping at their food.

Nothing about the image feels staged or unnatural, even if the lighting is subtly chiaroscuro to emphasise the central subject. As curator Clarissa Chikiamco quips: "It's as if Chua had just stepped into the canteen and painted the first thing he saw."

Similarly, his landscape paintings depict Singapore with all its architectural clashes and cultural miscellany. Shophouses and push carts appear against a backdrop of HDB flats. Dirty rivers flow between gleaming skyscrapers.

In the large landscape painting titled Benjamin Sheares Bridge - The Viaduct (1981) which measures 1.2 by 2.4 metres, Chua depicts a newly-constructed viaduct towering over muddy grounds next to construction sites.

In the background is the city's impressive skyline, a promise of what the construction area would look like once it's completed.

In these paintings, Chua opted for unvarnished images not fit for postcards and brochures - but which are critical to our collective understanding of how Singapore has changed and continues to change.

Covert meanings

A few other paintings, however, adopt a less direct approach. His two most famous paintings, National Language Class (1959) and Epic Poem Of Malaya (1955), appear much more theatrical than his other works: In the former, a group of Chinese students are learning Malay - then the national language - in a classroom. In the latter, a group of students are outside in a field, listening intently to their passionate leader as he reads aloud nationalistic poems of Malaya.

Both paintings were made in a time of great political and social changes on the island. And Chua imbues these paintings with almost covert meanings and intentions he may not have publicly declared.

But after Singapore achieved independence in 1965, Chua turned to capturing the changing landscape and people. His favourite subjects are Chinatown, the Singapore River and the working classes.

His most recent work in the exhibition is a sepia-tinged 2020 painting of a Chinatown street market flanked by shophouses, which he painted from memory. The painting titled New Market Road, Chinatown was executed during the pandemic, and shows how extraordinarily proficient he still is with the paintbrush.

Some people would have given up their passions at 90 - not Chua.

• Chua Mia Tee: Directing The Real runs from now till Nov 20, 2022 at National Gallery Singapore.