Flesh And Blood

"STILL ALIVE, STILL KICKING" is how Wong Keen replies to the standard greeting of "How do you do?" At 76, the veteran painter has lived a storied life that includes studying under Singapore art pioneers Liu Kang and Chen Wen Hsi when he was a boy, and then moving to New York at the tail end of the Abstract Expressionist movement led by Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko to study under other great teachers.

Wong would himself become Singapore's first abstract expressionist, spending a good part of his youth in New York to master his craft and run a gallery. Now he balances his time between Singapore and the US, and has just opened a strong new solo show at Helutrans focused on his latest inspiration - the meat shop.

Wong recalls: "I was on a residency programme with Galerie Urs Meile in Beijing when I decided to visit the street markets. When I saw the meat stalls, I was struck by the bursts of colours and textures. Of course, I've been to meat stalls before; I lived in the Lower East Side in New York where there are many butcher shops, but I was never inspired to do any work there. Somehow the experience in Beijing drew me deeper and deeper into the subject matter and it began to really provoke me."