작품 상세

The fixed gaze, eternal. Instead of viewers gazing at the painted woman with a gamut of emotions, the pair of eyes is dead focused, yes, on you or whoever is doing the gazing. So exotic but not enigmatic, so imposing but not fierce, is the woman's gaze that you don't even get distracted by her lipstick, a cross between a Rose Vale and Falu Red, with shades of chestnut. Or the delicious tones of the face. The flower naming follows the artist Chong Siew Ying's flower-tinged facialscapes of 2007 like Iris, Lotus and Plum Blossoms and even the 2008 Idylle fugue. With faces like these, you don't need masks. Chong Siew Ying's art flourish is reminiscent of Lai Foong Moi by four decades. Not satisfied with a diploma (Graphic Design, Petaling Jaya College of Art), she headed to study at the L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts (Versailles) and the L'Atelier 63 in France, sustaining herself as an au pair, while chalking up solos at the Maison Tch'A, Atelier d'Maravel and Gallery Cafe Panique. On her return, Rimbun Dahan didn't blink in giving her an art residency, which she followed up with the Freemont Fellowship at Vermont Studio Centre, United States. She won the Special Award in the 2002 Young Contemporary Artists (BMS) competition and was a finalist in the Hong Kong Sovereign Art Prize in 2009. She was in the travelling Malaysian Shadows and Images exhibition in Malmo (Sweden), Barcelona and Madrid (Spain), and featured in the 2015 Art Stage Singapore.