Swing in the Nanyang Style - Artist and Model

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Artist and Model

Named Artist and Model, Liu Kang finished this masterpiece in 1954.

In 1952, Liu, together with Chen Wen Hsi, Cheong Soo Pieng and Chen Chong Swee went on a historic field trip to Bali. They went in search of Southeast Asian visual expression, and Bali provided the visual material and inspiration for LIu and his fellow artists to develop the Nanyang Style.

To the layperson, in Artist and Model, as the name suggests, Liu Kang potrays a typical artist doing a sketch of a model. In fact, Liu depicts his memory onto paper. Artist and Model depicts his friend, Chen Wen Hsi sketching a Balinese woman.

On this 84 x 124cm canvas, Liu Kang’s dark outlines have become white - an innovation which could have been inspired by batik painting.

Painted in 1954, this work may be based on a sketch made during the artists’ field trip to Bali two years earlier. Chen is seated, working on a sketching board propped on another rattan chair. This rhythmic repetition of chairs, further echoed by the number and arrangement of tea pot and cups on the round table makes the entire painting delightfully casual and whimsical.

His simple use of colours and lines is similar to those of post-Impressionists, such as Vincent Van Gogh. Simplicity, indeed, as Liu painted in Nanyang Style, a school of painting which consciously attempted to visually represent the lifestyle, landscape, people, and flora and fauna of Southeast Asia, Nanyang, all of which is seen in the Artist and Model.

Hopefully, through my brief introduction, fellow Singaporeans can learn more about appreciating the arts, as Singapore attempts to become an international arts hub! (: