Chen Wen Hsi

Private Asian Collection

Singapore, Takashimaya Singapore, Reminiscence of Singapore’s Pioneer Art Masters, Singapore, March 11 – 22, 1994

 

The Singapore Mint, Reminiscence of Singapore's Pioneer Art Masters, Toppan Printing Co., Singapore, 1982, illustrated in colour

This medium of this work is oil on board, not oil on canvas as stated in the printed catalogue. This work is in excellent overall condition as viewed. There is evidence of very light wear to the edges of the canvas due to abrasions from the frame, but this does not affect the overall quality of the work. The paint layers are healthy overall. There are a few pinhole sized holes to the panel on upper right and upper left edge. Any inconsistency is due to the artist's working method. Examination under ultraviolet light reveals areas of restoration along all edges and corners and a few small and sporadic spots of restoration in the backdrop and at the mother's torso. Framed.
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Much of Singaporean modern art is said to have originated from the early Nanyang group of Chinese artists who immigrated to Southeast Asia during the early part of the 20^th century. The first wave of individuals came before the start of the Pacific War in the early forties, while the second wave arrived soon after the end of the war a decade later. They brought with them their classical Chinese training and ideals, and incorporated these talents into the country’s burgeoning art scene. Each individual soon developed their own creative voice that was a marriage of Eastern aesthetics paired alongside Western techniques.

Key figures of this era included Cheong Soo Pieng, Liu Kang, Chen Chong Swee, and Chen Wen Hsi, with Georgette Chen having the distinction of being the only women amidst this group of artist compatriots. They were viewed as the founding members of the Nanyang art moment, who subsequently shaped Singapore’s artistic identity. Amongst these individuals, it was Chen Wen Hsi who was known for his liberal pairing of Expressionist, Post-Impressionist, Cubist and Fauvist aesthetics that were then appropriated into Southeast Asian inspired narratives. An artist who “[adopted] the Chinese painter’s imagination in the creation of Western paintings”¹, Chen Wen Hsi’s oeuvre may be seen as one man’s self-exploration as part of the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia.

The present painting Mother and Child was created in the sixties when he began to experiment with foreign modes of expression, notably Cubism and Abstraction. Chen Wen Hsi’s foray into oil painting allowed the artist to exercise his painterly skills, while playing with a new set of visual tools in the works. “[Post-Impressionism] was the school of ‘external appearance’. That is, they paid attention to light and air… It is like painting something by referring to its form”, Chen Wen Hsi said. “After this, there was Fauvism and Cubism. Here, it is the application of subjectivity. You are gradually applying subjectivity to control the look of the picture… By right, painting is about objectivity, but the results are subjective”². It should be noted that with his oil paintings, Chen Wen Hsi is seen favouring figurative and still life. This is contrary with his ink on paper works that was a visual study of wild life. gibbons, cranes, and herons, featured prominently in those pieces.

Fellow artist Chen Chong Swee once said, “If someone were to seek my opinion on how to innovate the content and form of Chinese painting, I would recommend… to integrate techniques of Western painting, to be accepting of new things, [and] to reflect modern life”.³ This synthesis of East and West ideology also provided Chen Wen Hsi with his own unique vocabulary, and further established his role as a pioneering artist in the history of Singaporean modern art.

Mother and Child is a modern depiction of the familial archetype which is a fundamental part of the human psyche, as well as a celebrated theme in art throughout the centuries. The present painting is also a revealing look into the influential artists who left a lasting impression on Chen Wen Hsi’s Western art education. The work references Picasso’s painting Mother and Child (Marie-Therese and Maya) in the choice use of colours and Cubist compositional layout. Together with this admiration for Picasso and Braque, Chen Wen Hsi emulated other modern masters such as Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Klee throughout his oeuvre.

In Mother and Child he reshapes the ideal of the mother and child relationship into a regional narrative to “capture the flavour of Nanyang, especially in terms of the peoples of the region”.⁴ Throughout his oeuvre Chen Wen Hsi embodied the roles of the painter, as well as the “other” in his body of works. The latter role is demonstrative of the “ongoing tension between the longings for one’s past with the attempts at rooting oneself in the present”⁵, that colours the paintings dedicated to human relationships. Early works including Two Figures, painted a decade earlier, also show this want to delve deeper into the local culture.

Women were rarely seen as ornamentation in the paintings. Instead they were placed in specific narratives to intensify the overall mood. Mother and Child adheres to this creative belief, for the two figures are representative of human rapport and interaction, their familial bond underlining the mood of this particular painting. The individuals who populated Chen Wen Hsi’s oeuvre represented the layman, and therefore the very foundations that supported the country. As an immigrant living in a foreign country, his paintings reflected this initial role as an outsider before finding his place as a Chinese-Singaporean.

When grouped together the Nanyang artists who arrived after the Pacific War may be seen as a collective voice, that shows this second wave of immigrants to be “…facing the reality of their [new] society [and their paintings struggling] to position and represent the “self” by exchanging…one’s identity with [a Singaporean] identity”.⁶ The art became both a catharsis, as well as catalyst, for the artists’ own autonomy in a new location they sought to call home. A much discussed and important event in the four male artists’ career was a trip to Bali in 1952 that had a transformative impact upon their creative outlook, and lasting influence on future works from their oeuvres. The artist Liu Kang said, “Bali, with its alluring customs, old architectures, dances and music, was full of characteristics suitable to Nanyang”.⁷

Like his peers, Chen Wen Hsi found inspiration in the island’s vibrant culture and traditions. Attention to colours is evident in the artist’s oil paintings created during the late fifties and onwards. Mother and Child continue on this theme of portraying the external world with vibrant colours as means to communicate the internal desires and feelings of the artist. “We must respect the objective form in painting, as it is after all, the lingua franca of the artist and his audience,” he said. “The question is…how to project the ‘self’ of the artist in the process of depicting the likeness of an object? The individual character of a painting is indeed more important than likeness of form. Herein lies the soul of the work”.⁸        

¹ Convergences: Chen Wen Hsi Centennial Exhibition, Transcript of Oral History Interview with Artist, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore, 2006, pg. 62

² Refer to 1

³ A Changed World: Singapore Art 1950s-1970s: Dialogues, National Museum of Singapore, Singapore, 2013, pg. 64

⁴ Refer to 3,  pg. 27

⁵ Refer to 3, pg.65

⁶ Toshiko Rawanchaikul, Nanyang: 1950-65: Passage to Singaporean Art,  Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, 2002

⁷ Refer to 6

⁸ Refer to 3, pg.70