작품 상세

This work by batik-art pioneer Dato' Chuah Thean Teng has a dull veneer probably depicting pre-dawn or around dusk, and which serves to enhance the silhouette of the figure of a tudung-clad woman in the centre carrying a work tool in what looks like a container. She is wedged against a round trellis circumscribed by leaf-like patterns. The exaggerated long body serves to show the tough labour that this woman experienced as a routine, but the figure is nicely placed within the penumbra of the circle, which sort of balances things up. The greenish tint with shades of pale yellow hints that her work is agrarian, at a rubber plantation. Chuah Thean Teng, later Dato', is acknowledged as the originator of Batik Painting (Chinese Art In The 20th Century, 1959, by Professor Michael Sullivan), after he unveiled the art-form in 1953. The National Art Gallery accorded him a Retrospective in 1965, and a Tribute exhibition in 2008. He was also given a retrospective by the Penang State Art Gallery in 1994. He was bestowed the Dato' title in 1998, and the Penang's Live Heritage Award in 2005. He was the sole Malaysian among the world's great artists invited for the Commonwealth Artists of Fame exhibition in London in 1977, to mark the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation.