작품 상세

The archaic charm of the tiered temple with people lepaking (loafing) around it and also with the white monument in front overshadowing the taller modern buildings in the softer autumnal light. A curious triangle forms from the slanted shadow against white, complementing the two triangular entablatures in Durbar Square of Kathmandu, a Unesco World Heritage site. The hallmarks of colours and edifice are unmistakeably from the iconic Himalayas dossier of Singapore's world-acclaimed watercolourist Ong Kim Seng. It was his Himalayan Trek solo exhibition in Singapore in 1979 that catapulted him to fame, and since then he had made more than a dozen painting and trekking expeditions. It was again, his Himalayas watercolour that made him a signature member of the august American Watercolor Society in 1983, topping it with the Paul B. Remmy Award. He has since won a total of nine AWS awards including two more also on Nepal, in 1992 and 2000, when he was made a Dolphin Fellow. His work, Nepal, set a new record at Sotheby's Hong Kong on April 3, 2017, when it sold for HK$725,000 (approx. S$130,540). Self-taught Ong Kim Seng remarkably rose to be a leading world artist, garnering garlands of awards including an unprecedented nine from the American Watercolor Society and crowning it with being made a prestigious Dolphin Fellow in 2000. After deciding to go fulltime in 1985, he became known for his landscapes of Nepal, Bali and Singapore. In Singapore, he was awarded the Singapore Cultural Medallion for Visual Arts in 1991, Friend of Heritage Award in 2010, Excellence for Singapore Award (2000), and the Culture Ministry Medal for painting (1977). In 2017, he was named one of the Top 25 Watercolor Painters of the World in the Greece Watercolor Festival and in 2014 he was dubbed Master of Asean Watercolours. As president of the Singapore Watercolour Society from 1991 to 2001, he was organising chairman of the Asian Watercolours in 1997. He had also been adviser to the (Singapore) National Arts Council since 1998, Life Fellow of the National University of Singapore's Centre for the Arts.