Emptiness that attracts

By Oou Kok Chuen
Publisher:The Star - Publication Date: 21-11-2007

One does not often see a red-tagged artist move beyond his comfort zone to try something different – and completely impress with his first attempt.
Kow Leong Kiang’s latest solo exhibition, Other People, takes the breath away with large portraitures in lightened, muted grey monochromes that are a far cry from his past work. In the last decade and a half, Kow has been known for his cinematic flourish of kampung (village) girls in rustic surroundings. Simple, innocent, blithely unaware of the fast-changing world in towns and cities.
Other People is a swing of the pendulum to the other side.
The “actors” this time are certainly more sophisticated – Caucasian young adults and a Japanese – and are people he met at the Vermont Studio Centre in the United States, where he had spent two months as winner of the Freeman Foundation Asian Artist Fellowship in 2004.
The oil paintings of the mainly single figures, rendered on the gentler-than-usual surface of jute and linen canvas, take up the whole 219cm x 120cm or 149cm x 149cm spaces.
Bold in conception and scale, the drawing-like paintings seem to have been foreshadowed by his The Inner Line drawings in charcoal and sepia pastels in his 2004 solo.
There is also a Chinese ink-painting feel about them.
What is most interesting is Kow’s technique of receding figures into the canvas with refined tonal subtleties, which is especially noticeable in Nellie II.
There were signs of these fade-outs in his 2005 solo, Silent Conversation, but these new works see the thinning veneer becoming even more austere and the “colours” (one can hardly call them that) succinctly diluted and denuded into the lightest shades of pale.
This near absence of colours contrasts sharply with Kow’s livelier palette of yellow ochre, burnt sienna and raw and burnt umber previously.
The accent is on a softer-than-soft-focus to achieve a mock dreamy and slightly melancholy aura.
Backdrops are flattish blends and bleeds, to show an emptiness, reduce distractions and create a minimalist mood, though Fuchsia, Aiden With Cup, Victor and Kyalo and Yukinori have supporting “props”.
The works are imbued with the feelings of the great American Realist Andrew Wyeth (b. 1917), noted for his painting series Christina’s World (1948) and the controversial Helga Pictures (1986).
This effect is especially apparent in Kow’s lighter works on the demure Nellie with luscious lips and especially Fuchsia, in which attention is diverted by the woman sitting cross-legged on the sofa in the background. Her hands are clasped around a mug as if for warmth, while the two mugs on the table in the foreground function as directional keys, showing she has company.
Kow acknowledges Wyeth among his artistic inspirations.
Though Kow’s works tend to be anecdotal, the resonance this time is created by what is left unsaid, by a yawning chasm of unuttered thoughts.
He has captured his subjects rapt in their thoughts or seemingly experiencing a kind of mental inertia, thinking of nothing in particular but with a flashing shadow of thought.
This is unlike the more haunting take in his Mr Foreign Speculator, Stop Damaging Our Country, a painting about the economic and currency contagion that blighted Asia in 1997-98, and that won him the coveted Grand Prize in the Philip Morris Asean Art Awards finals in Ha Noi in 1998.
That win represented a psychological breakthrough for local artists, as Kow was the first Malaysian to win that prize in five years since the awards began in 1994.
It was also the pinnacle of his triumph as an artist, though he had shown great potential earlier on, winning a clutch of awards, like the National Day Art Competition Major Award in 1991, the Young Contemporary Artist Minor Award in 1992, and the International Prize for Student Artist at the Savannah College in the United States in 1993.
Despite the Philip Morris win, which Kow said had greatly bolstered his confidence, it was not until 2003 that he was able to hold his first solo exhibition, Floating World, also at Valentine Willie Fine Art.
Other People, Kow Leong Kiang’s fourth solo exhibition, in on at Valentine Willie Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, until Dec 1. For details, call Rachel at 03-2284 2348 or go to vwfa.net.

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