Appendix A These Children Are Dead • Kaylene Tan 30 September 2009 Nora enters. Followed by paintings. As audience sits down, Nora signals for slide projector. Signals for lights. She is in complete control. Good evening. I’m Nora Samosir. Thank you for coming. (pause) I wasn’t expecting a crowd. (pause) I am very excited and happy to share these beautiful artworks with you today. Most of you may know me as an actor and a lecturer at NUS, so this is well... these circumstances today, here are how shall I put it… a bit different. This is my first lecture on art, so… I’m a bit nervous, because I know there are many experts out there in the audience tonight. Token gesture to someone in the crowd. Anyway, I am honoured to be able to share my journey of discovery with you all. These paintings are very dear to me. Let’s begin. Begin with he. The artist. Huang Wei. (click to new slide) Huang Wei was born in 1914, in Singapore. The paintings that you saw in the gallery and the six before you now were painted in the so-called golden age of Singapore Art in the late 1940s - 1950s: The Nanyang Style. I’m sure you all know of (click to new slide) Liu Kang, (click to new slide) Georgette Chen, (click to new slide) Cheong Soo Pieng, (click to new slide) Chen Wen Hsi. They were artists who tried to combine Chinese and Western art influences with South East Asian subject matter. Huang Wei was of that generation, but he painted apart from them. He was a could-have-been who never was. Huang Wei didn’t paint like his contemporaries. He was not trained in Shanghai. Never went to Bali. He, painted portraits… mainly of children. He painted quietly for years in his house. And then one day, he disappeared. He left behind a total of seventy-six paintings and a few journals. These Children Are Dead • Kaylene Tan 30 September 2009 Huang Wei wasn’t doing too badly as a painter. He exhibited at Victoria Memorial Hall in 1952. Sold two pieces for $80 each. He attended the YMCA art club and the British Council meetings until 1955. Then nothing. So I take that to be the date he disappeared… retired…died… So who was Huang Wei? What do his portraits of children tell us about Singapore, art and history? Huang Wei’s father, Huang Qi owned the Southern Star Studios. He was a self-taught photographer, who migrated to Singapore from Shanghai in 1912. Huang Qi married Song Gim Choo, a Peranakan lady in 1914. Later that year, Huang Wei was born. Huang Wei had three brothers and two sisters. Huang Wei’s family lived and worked in the corner shophouse on Armenian Street, you know opposite The Substation, where they had the famous char kway teow? No one eats char kway teow? Ok, that’s where Royston made that film…Hock Hiap Leong? You know… dancing like that? Anyway, that’s where they lived and worked. Imagine a living room with painted backdrops from Shanghai and Europe, and various props ranging from potted plants, imitation masonry, drapery, to porcelain dogs and toys for children. In the daytime, when they were old enough, the Huang children helped out in the studio. At night, they rolled out mats and slept on the floor. This was his world as he was growing up. The Southern Star Studios photographed the local elite - Mrs Song Ong Siang, Dr Lim Boon Keng, Tan Kim Seng all had their portraits done there. These people and many others had the Huangs immortalize a moment of prosperity in a black and white photograph. Towkays with their wives and their children (click to new slide). Three generations with sons and daughters. (click to new slide) Couples on their wedding days. (click to new slide) Children, newly born. (click to new slide) Children before they were old. (click to new slide) Let me read an extract from one of his journal: June 1947. I have no memory of my childhood. There’s one of me posing with the Lims, as their make-believe fourth son. There’s me, standing in for the deceased third brother. The sailor suit is too big and I look nothing like the others. Me 2 These Children Are Dead • Kaylene Tan 30 September 2009 again, with a baby holding that stupid bird. I don’t remember being there, doing those things. He was an artistic child, always sketching faces, figures. He went to Anglo Chinese School at Coleman Street. In 1928, he received the Lim Boon Keng Gold Medal for art, then won a scholarship to attend Raffles Institution. He was one of the growing numbers of English-educated Asians, exposed to Western ideas, religion and art. He was taught by Richard Walker, the first Art Inspector of schools. Walker was the authority on Western art in Singapore. He influenced an entire generation of artists. When Huang Wei finished school, he stopped painting and started work in the family business. He soon took over from his father as the main photographer. The 20s and 30s were prosperous for Huang who was part of the western-educated middle-class. He was relatively unaffected by the politicization of some of the population, who were unhappy with their colonial masters. Huang got married in 1939, to Lim Mei Kim. They had two childrenShe stares into the distance. A very long pause. … sorry. Where was I? You know how you just lose your train of thought sometimes and you are stuck on a word. What was that word? Right. (She scans through notes.) Let’s move on. Ah yes. Huang Wei was painting his lost children… I mean his lost childhood. Post-war Singapore… No… the war. World War Two, 1942-1945. To the British, Singapore was the impregnable fortress, but she fell to the Japanese in just seven days. Huang Wei survived the sook ching – that was when the Japanese screened the Chinese population for hostile elements. You know, thousands of Chinese were killed. 3 These Children Are Dead • Kaylene Tan 30 September 2009 And tragically, Huang Wei lost his studio and his entire family during the war. Journal entry: Back in my father’s house. Someone has been here. Bodies familiar, but beyond recognition. They wasted their bullets on the little ones. Nowhere to bury the dead. One match finishes it all off. Huang Wei’s paintings express the trauma of war on the psyche and on the body. He created these paintings after the war. He was in his thirties by then. It was an exciting but tumultuous time. Singapore was struggling for independence. This is a good time to start anew. What to paint? The oils sit in the box. Possibilities. (Lecture 2: The discovery) I’d like to share with you how I discovered these paintings. My sister in law’s father is a building contractor. He told me about the paintings he was about to dispose of in this shophouse in Joo Chiat. He knew I liked old things, I’m a bit of a history buff if you must. It’s not so much the politics I’m interested in, but the stories, especially the ones that didn’t make it into the history books. I like to travel and visit historical places… sites of ruins. [Two years ago, I finally made it to Machu Picchu after dreaming about it for seven years. You trek for hours to visit a pile of rubble. And standing there, you imagine the lives there, once lived. All the little things that add up to a life. All the lives, including mine. There. (pause) The feeling is pretty overwhelming, in a good way. That’s how I felt in the middle of the ruins in the Joo Chiat shophouse. I suppose you could call it an affinity with humanity?] Anyway. I’m rambling… So, my sister-in-law’s father knew I liked old, you know…well, unwanted things so, he called me. 4 These Children Are Dead • Kaylene Tan 30 September 2009 The paintings had sat in that room for over 50 years, untouched. Waiting for me. Unlooked at. Inglorious. Filthy. Layers of dust, mould and mildew. Not even fit for the karung guni man. When I held the firstPossibilities. I took them to the artist, Alan Oei. I knew he had an interest in old paintings. He oversaw the restoration of the paintings and emailed daily updates. Slowly, slowly they revealed themselves to me. I never lost faith in them. I’m quoting my mum, here. You have not disappointed me. You are my children. You are real. I will never lose faith in you. As the rotan marked our skin. Again and again. Lessons in love. She smiles. She closes her eyes. She opens her eyes. Slowly The first one takes you by surprise. The second teaches you difference. The third, that the same rules do not apply. The fourth, that there is room for more. The fifth, renews your faith. The sixth child, breaks your heart. She looks around the room. Smiling. She goes to a painting. Look. Pause. What fascinates me in these paintings is that they are never still. They resist being pinned down. Each time you think you get it, the children surprise you. Long Pause. 5 These Children Are Dead • Kaylene Tan 30 September 2009 Huang’s children are receding into the canvas. They are being swallowed by the world around them. Childhood never seemed so bleak, so melancholic. Paint made flesh. They reach out from their dense clotted murky backgrounds, beckoning, magnetic. They draw us in and we submit, quite willingly. When you close your eyes, they are still there, ghosting your eyelids. I want a reaction in human terms. I want to open your eyes, your heart. Is it possible for people to weep before my paintings? To experience the feeling of… salvation – question mark – that I had while creating them? (Journal entry March, 1950) I’ve had such a range of responses to these works. Earlier in the gallery, an academic, a real hardass, said they gave him vertigo. He was scared of falling in. I showed my niece these paintings. I have two gorgeous nieces - my sister’s daughters. They are six and three-going-on-thirtythree. The older one, likes to draw people. When she was younger, she drew potato people. A big oval face with stick arms and legs. These days her people have bodies. They have detail like hairclips, eyelashes, lace on dresses, high heeled shoes. She goes for art enrichment classes, not because her mother wants to turn her into artist, but because of how focused she is when she is creating something. Totally absorbed. When she colours, she knows about shading. She has figured out what happens when light hits the body. She spent a long time looking at these works. And of course she has her opinions. And I am interested because these children are her age. Were, I mean. No… what am I saying. Are. These children depicted are her age. She spent a while with her frozen playmates Nora goes to a painting and removes a hair from it. She looks, it is still there. She picks it up, it is stuck on her hand. She shakes it off and begins again. Do they have names? The artist didn’t name his paintings. 6 These Children Are Dead • Kaylene Tan 30 September 2009 She called them silly names – Pee Chye, Ding Dong… you know, just silly. Too dark. Funny face. Is that a boy? He has silly hair. Why isn’t he smiling? Et cetera. But this one… I like her dress… That’s me, she said. But I am sad. Why? Don’t know. Maybe someone I love doesn’t love me anymore? Julian? He is the rough boy from the neighbourhood. I stopped liking him ages ago. Oh sorry I’m so yesterday. Maybe daddy. He doesn’t love me anymore because I did something to make him angry… like I didn’t share my care bear with meimei. He wouldn’t stop loving you because of that, you know. Maybe he died. What? Maybe daddy died. That’s horrible. He is going to, you know. So are you. And me. But I hope Daddy doesn’t die when I am a child. And I’ll be sad and I’ll look like that girl. Then she said Aunty Nora… I think the girl is in her coffin. Like grandpa. My father died a few months ago, and I suppose that was her first encounter with death. It will probably be her first memory of loss. I love talking to my niece. What doesn’t she see? How does she look at you? Children are more robust than we give them credit for. They are unfazable, unfrightened of the world. And sometimes you don’t know whether to run alongside them and cheer them on, or stand in front of them and shield them from what lies ahead. [I have been spending so much time on this project, I have been neglecting my family. It’s been weeks since I’ve eaten at home. This Sunday – family day. Last night, when I snuck in at midnight, my mum who happened to be up waiting for me said, “Jojo looked very sad at dinner time. She only had one chicken wing!” Usually, she has at least five. My mum, she knows just how to get me. And I submit. 7 These Children Are Dead • Kaylene Tan 30 September 2009 In many ways I feel like I am still my mother’s child – young, in her eyes. She won’t let go and I don’t let her. At my age, can you imagine? Sorry.] She scans through notes. (Lecture 4: Incomplete paintings/ context) Post-war Singapore was a mess. No water, electricity. No food, leading to malnutrition, disease. There were revenge killings, crime and violence. Food prices shot up. There was little work and those who had work were discontented. This led to strikes and riots. There was little to keep Huang Wei in Singapore. He left at the first available opportunity. He traded his camera equipment for a ticket out. A ship, any ship. How do you calculate a departure? Not by the hours or minutes but a moment. An instant when the decision was made. He found himself in Europe, home of the great master painters. Huang haunted the galleries. Staring. (click to new slide) These images, all those years ago. (click to new slides) Then, he took a boat to Malta. Malta was one of the most intensively bombed countries in the war. There, amongst the ruins, an old painting. (click to new slide) The Beheading of St John the Baptist. I, myself saw Caravaggio’s altar piece when I was in Malta. I spent some time on the beaches, but it was there at the foot of this work, where I found silence. The light directs our gaze, from the warden’s index finger, to the executioner's left hand, holding Saint John's partially severed head in place like a butcher in an abattoir, while he reaches for his dagger to finish the process off. Then our eyes are led to the platter, held low by Salome in anticipation of receiving the head, then to the old woman. The old woman is horrified. But she covers her ears rather than her eyes. The sound of a killing, worse than the sight. 8 These Children Are Dead • Kaylene Tan 30 September 2009 I look past the line of the blade, at Saint John's painfully bound body. Just a moment before, he was a seeing, hearing, feeling, thinking human being like us; now he is a stroke away from being a mere carcass. This is a good time to start anew. What to paint? The oils sit in the box. Possibilities. When I found Huang Wei’s paintings, I imagined beautiful oils in the style of the old masters. As they were being restored, I thought Alan had made a mistake. Where is the rest of his arm? There is no arm. There is no arm. No arm. Yes. No arm. The next section undercuts the seriousness of the section before. Light. A bit silly. So I thought that maybe it’s like during the time of the Renaissance; for example, if you wanted your portrait done, the painter would charge you by how many hands he had to do because hands are difficult to paint. So I looked at some of the children and thought maybe the parents couldn’t afford a full portrait. Like this child, you can see one hand but the other hand is cleverly disguised in the Manchu dress. Goes to another painting And maybe this child is precious because she’s got gold jewellery on and a big jade pendant and she’s got both hands painted. Goes to another painting This child is obviously spoilt because not only does he have both hands he’s on a bicycle! Goes to another painting So I thought “oh... (looking at no. 1 boy) his parents didn’t pay and Huang Wei stopped painting.” Looking at Indian boy Another cleverly disguised hand there. Goes to striped shirt boy. 9 These Children Are Dead • Kaylene Tan 30 September 2009 But you know, this child doesn’t look right. Stared at him. He looks back. I go over his arm. Softly… softly. There, like a caress. All better now. Until blue became black… In these times, you can’t paint whole figures. Look. Along with hundreds of men at Victoria Street, we were interviewed then detained. Guilty of being what I am, a recorder of images. That’s all. Bound, six to one length of rope. Transported by lorry to Changi beach. A command was a command in any language. You all mine. Shuffling into the darkness. We knelt. Bayonets to heads. I prayed. With no notion of god I prayed. Others had been here. They lay along the beach, dead. Those who didn’t die when they were shot were knifed. I had heard about this. Now I’ve seen it. The man next to me said why should we let ourselves get shot? He waded into the sea, we followed, all being bound together. The moment my knots came into contact with the seawater, they came loose. I swam outwards regardless of what was happening. A whistle. An ordinary whistle…then machine guns opened up. I took a deep breath and went under water. The bullets ricocheting above me. The sound of a killing. Then silence. Playing dead in the blood black salty sea I prayed. With no notion of god I prayed once more. A motorboat came out to sea, pistol shots to finish off the wounded. When the searchlights went off, I swam to shore. Why did God let me live? This God that wasn’t. Huang Wei was lucky. He was an escape artist. Nora stands still, staring. In these times, you can’t paint whole figures. You couldn’t because the peoples’ identities were in flux. We had been part of British Malaya. After the war, Singapore became a crown colony, separated from Peninsula Malaysia. The communists tried to stake their claims. And there were our ties with the motherlands – China, India. 10 These Children Are Dead • Kaylene Tan 30 September 2009 Who were we? What did we want? Merdeka. Self-government. We wanted the British out. Post-war Singapore marked a fresh start for everyone. (click to new slide) Look. The Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, or NAFA, (click to new slide) was restored in 1946. Its educational philosophy was steered from Chinese nationalism towards the social context of Southeast Asia. Like Huang Wei, the Nanyang artists were exploring new forms of expression. But the one big difference is their backgrounds. The Nanyang painters had grown up and trained in China, then settled in Singapore. Their primary language: Chinese brush painting. Their influences: Cezanne, Gauguin, Picasso, Matisse. Their subject matter: local landscape, objects and people. (click to new slide) St Andrews Cathedral by Cheong Soo Pieng. (click to new slide) Street scene by Liu Kang. (click to new slide) In the Museum by Chen Wen Hsi. (click to new slide) Composition by Lim Hak Tai. Their experimentations with painting styles marked the beginnings of modern Chinese art here. The Nanyang artists were working through forms of representation to create an artistic language to express who they were. Their distinct styles have evolved over time to become an art movement that is embraced by Singapore art historians. In fact, you can’t get them to shut up about the Nanyang! Now anyway, I’m no expert in the Nanyang and that’s not what we’re here for. But I’d like to share some of my favourites, so that you get a sense of what was going on artistically when Huang Wei was painting. (click to new slide) Brook by Cheong Soo Pieng. (click to new slide) Coffee Shop by Chen Chong Swee. (click to new slide) Mosque in Kuala Lumper by Georgette Chen. 11 These Children Are Dead • Kaylene Tan 30 September 2009 (click to new slide) Malay Woman by Cheong Soo Pieng. (click to new slide) These China-born artists drew their inspiration from their present surroundings: essentially, what they saw. Huang Wei didn’t share the background of the Nanyang-style painters. Huang Wei was an artist born and bred in Singapore. He was painting in the moment. In the then and now. From the inside out. Look. Sit with audience. Long Pause. My brush, an extension of me. I am making paintings with my right and rubbing off the traces with my left. I am trying to make something... Don’t know what. Adding then subtracting. Back to nought. Back to me. Huang Wei went back to the images he had seen, all those years ago. Long Pause. Stretched the first canvas. My brush in hand. What to paint? The oils are in the box. Possibilities. I am in my father’s house. Standing there, as still as I was all those years ago. I have no memory of my childhood. There’s one of me posing with the Lims, as their make-believe fourth son. There’s me, standing in for the deceased third brother. The sailor suit is too big and I look nothing like the others. Me again, with a baby holding that stupid bird. I don’t remember being there, doing those things. Familiar bodies, beyond recognition. The room fills up with the tiniest particles, the bits of soul, people surrendered to the camera all those years ago. It falls on me, like dust from rubble. Ready now. To paint. Get up again. Huang Wei, like the old masters, painted in layers. 12 These Children Are Dead • Kaylene Tan 30 September 2009 The first layer is called the imprimatura, which is like a stain that guides the rest of the painting. Subsequent layers are applied in the transparent or semitransparent glazes. These glazes are thin, so that the light is refracted through the layers, to bounce back towards the viewer. So, you get texture and depth. Look how the light falls on him. The old style European portraits only had one source of light, usually from the left. You see evidence of Huang’s background in photography. Light from here and there (indicates). This was how he lit his subjects, or how he remembered he was lit. Care is taken not to cover the imprimatura completely. As if to say who and what you are will always reveal itself. Or perhaps that your history, like the imprimatura will always haunt you. Come. (She gets a volunteer from audience.) Come and stand where Huang Wei stood. She stands at an arms length from a painting too. Look. This was how he saw his children. You know, I think I was wrong when I said they were being swallowed by their backgrounds. They are images that exist in the in between. The arm is not maimed, it is painted to effect proximity. As if someone is so close to you, their flesh becomes blurry. Like so. (She stands very close to an audience member) Thank you. (To audience volunteer) He longs to touch. To hold another human being. She turns around. The slide projector is not working. A lull. (Lecture 5: Departures) He never disappeared. He just stopped painting. He moved on. Some might say it’s the same thing. I found you. You found me. This man, the loves of her life. But she didn’t know then, know nothing of the thing, the love, like the tide surges to come. 13 These Children Are Dead • Kaylene Tan 30 September 2009 Sand between his toes. Seawater up to her ankles. What do you remember of your childhood? I have no memory of my childhood, he said. I remember looking out of window, waiting for my father to come home, she said. I have no memory of my childhood, he said. My first taste of coconut juice. Hiding in the cupboard, waiting to be found before the pontianak who ate children who played hide and seek at night found me. I remember squatting to pee under the mango tree and getting pee all over my new shoes. How do you know they really happened? Maybe you’ve got the wrong memories. Maybe you invented these stories so that I would like you. Maybe you’re being difficult so that I would like you. She was sharp, he liked that. What were you like? I liked to draw. At night, when I couldn’t sleep, I would take my mattress away and draw on the bed frame. He began with his father’s house. His family. Trees. Cars, buses, trams. A sunny day. A thunderstorm. Day then night with stars. Slowly he filled the bed. Each night, another installment to the epic. Duels between wuhsia heroes and shaolin monks. They fight, they die. A football match. Strange creatures from hell. Enemy planes in the sky. A day out at the beach with his family. A night on the beach with his lover. The bed was full. Pictures in place of dreams. That’s all. Think harder she said. It’s all gone. They stayed there, this island of two. Still, at the place where the land meets the sky meets the sea. Not touching. Just looking. Till blue became black. And there was no sky no sea 14 These Children Are Dead • Kaylene Tan 30 September 2009 only the land, sand beneath their feet – feeling the earth move, one grain at a time. At the end I leave these children. Orphans. Bastards. It’s better that way. Finding these paintings and piecing this life together doesn’t complete the picture. It begins a new story. You paint. You create something, someone. But once you put it out there, you begin the process of letting go. You have to, or else it won’t live. How do you calculate a departure? Not by the hours or minutes but a moment. An instant when the decision was made. Look. Each time you think you get it, they surprise you. Perhaps the children are not receding into the canvas. They are emerging from the darkness, into dazzle of daylight. The arm is not mutilated. He is just not yet fully formed. They are borning. Borning is something my three-year old niece came up with. I asked her – Do you remember being in mummy’s tummy? Yes. I was a good swimmer. Then you grew, bigger and bigger. I was borning. Borning - in the process of birthing yourself. Not “being born”, not “being given birth to”. I like that. That’s how I want to see the pictures. Not dark, not bleak but burning with optimism. He came into the world. Alien to his mother. Like he had come from a far away place to tell his parents something. I see my father in me. The nose? No. Chin? The lips. The proportions perhaps. Of him. From him… there. I blame him for my asthma. The tick in my throat. He trained my eyes to see. To you, I am always a child, still young. I always thought you would be stronger than me, until you got sick. The body never lies. I think about all the conversations we never had. All the pictures that you will never make. 15 These Children Are Dead • Kaylene Tan 30 September 2009 I can’t keep my eyes open. It’s so bright. I am going to grow up and be everything you didn’t think I was going to be. Nora exits. Music 16 [...]... Like Huang Wei, the Nanyang artists were exploring new forms of expression But the one big difference is their backgrounds The Nanyang painters had grown up and trained in China, then settled in Singapore Their primary language: Chinese brush painting Their influences: Cezanne, Gauguin, Picasso, Matisse Their subject matter: local landscape, objects and people (click to new slide) St Andrews Cathedral... painting in the moment In the then and now From the inside out Look Sit with audience Long Pause My brush, an extension of me I am making paintings with my right and rubbing off the traces with my left I am trying to make something Don’t know what Adding then subtracting Back to nought Back to me Huang Wei went back to the images he had seen, all those years ago Long Pause Stretched the first canvas... brush in hand What to paint? The oils are in the box Possibilities I am in my father’s house Standing there, as still as I was all those years ago I have no memory of my childhood There’s one of me posing with the Lims, as their make-believe fourth son There’s me, standing in for the deceased third brother The sailor suit is too big and I look nothing like the others Me again, with a baby holding that... would take my mattress away and draw on the bed frame He began with his father’s house His family Trees Cars, buses, trams A sunny day A thunderstorm Day then night with stars Slowly he filled the bed Each night, another installment to the epic Duels between wuhsia heroes and shaolin monks They fight, they die A football match Strange creatures from hell Enemy planes in the sky A day out at the beach... his family A night on the beach with his lover The bed was full Pictures in place of dreams That’s all Think harder she said It’s all gone They stayed there, this island of two Still, at the place where the land meets the sky meets the sea Not touching Just looking Till blue became black And there was no sky no sea 14 These Children Are Dead • Kaylene Tan 30 September 2009 only the land, sand beneath... Mosque in Kuala Lumper by Georgette Chen 11 These Children Are Dead • Kaylene Tan 30 September 2009 (click to new slide) Malay Woman by Cheong Soo Pieng (click to new slide) These China-born artists drew their inspiration from their present surroundings: essentially, what they saw Huang Wei didn’t share the background of the Nanyang-style painters Huang Wei was an artist born and bred in Singapore He was... evidence of Huang’s background in photography Light from here and there (indicates) This was how he lit his subjects, or how he remembered he was lit Care is taken not to cover the imprimatura completely As if to say who and what you are will always reveal itself Or perhaps that your history, like the imprimatura will always haunt you Come (She gets a volunteer from audience.) Come and stand where Huang Wei... evolved over time to become an art movement that is embraced by Singapore art historians In fact, you can’t get them to shut up about the Nanyang! Now anyway, I’m no expert in the Nanyang and that’s not what we’re here for But I’d like to share some of my favourites, so that you get a sense of what was going on artistically when Huang Wei was painting (click to new slide) Brook by Cheong Soo Pieng (click... Children Are Dead • Kaylene Tan 30 September 2009 Who were we? What did we want? Merdeka Self-government We wanted the British out Post-war Singapore marked a fresh start for everyone (click to new slide) Look The Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, or NAFA, (click to new slide) was restored in 1946 Its educational philosophy was steered from Chinese nationalism towards the social context of Southeast Asia Like... She stands at an arms length from a painting too Look This was how he saw his children You know, I think I was wrong when I said they were being swallowed by their backgrounds They are images that exist in the in between The arm is not maimed, it is painted to effect proximity As if someone is so close to you, their flesh becomes blurry Like so (She stands very close to an audience member) Thank you ... essentially, what they saw Huang Wei didn’t share the background of the Nanyang-style painters Huang Wei was an artist born and bred in Singapore He was painting in the moment In the then and now... and a big jade pendant and she’s got both hands painted Goes to another painting This child is obviously spoilt because not only does he have both hands he’s on a bicycle! Goes to another painting... backgrounds The Nanyang painters had grown up and trained in China, then settled in Singapore Their primary language: Chinese brush painting Their influences: Cezanne, Gauguin, Picasso, Matisse Their