kiddolucas lee 27 Aug 2006

Datuk Chuah Thean Teng (in the middle)...with his 2 sons who are famous Batik artist too

kiddolucas lee 27 Aug 2006

It caused a bit of a stir in Penang Island (Malaysia) Before him, no one had ever conceived of Batik, popular on sarongs, being used as FINE ART

So when his collection was taken to Universiti Malaya in Singapore the next year, artists were taken aback.

"Two Women & the Cow " by Datuk chuah Thean Teng *BATIK Painting

kiddolucas lee 27 Aug 2006

One prominent critic called the display the Most UNusual one-man show ever to be seen in Singapore.

In Chuah Thean Teng, University Malaya art lecturer Dr Michael Sullivan excitedly announced, Malaya claims to have found her first National painter.

"Feeding Durian " by Datuk/Sir Chuah Thean Teng * Batik Painting

kiddolucas lee 27 Aug 2006

So striking were the works that a university librarian named Wilfred J. Plumbe personally prepaid all costs for bringing the paintings down south.

"Mother & Child " by Sir Chuah Thean Teng * BATIK Painting

kiddolucas lee 27 Aug 2006

Chuah s next exhibition was at Kuala Lumpur in 1957. More than 62 paintings got snapped up in a few days, prompting a media scurry with a national film crew hastening to shoot him at work with his wax spout and dyes.

kiddolucas lee 27 Aug 2006

And when his paintings were then shipped for a solo exhibition at the Commonwealth Institute in England, it became the first overseas art project sponsored by the Malayan government(Malaysian Governement).

"To the Market" by Dato Chuah Thean Teng *Batik Painting

kiddolucas lee 27 Aug 2006

It also became the most successful display the Institute had hosted till then.

The Daily Mail went as far as to hail him a Revolutionary in world art.

"Penang Festival" by Dato' Chuah Thean Teng

kiddolucas lee 27 Aug 2006

Finding an entirely new and immediately convincing method of pictorial expression is a rare occurrence, wrote its critic Pierre Jeanneret.

The last I can think of was the invention of lithography between 1796 and 1798. Now comes another.

Even then, ask an average Malaysian on the street and almost certainly he will know his pop stars - but not his nations artists.

"Village Life" by Dato' Chuah Thean Teng

kiddolucas lee 27 Aug 2006

Today, Datuk Chuah Thean Teng, at a healthy 93 years, is one of the few surviving members among the pioneer modern artists of Malaysia.

The National Art Gallery labelled him The Creator of Batik Painting as a fine art.

" At the Coconut Plantation" by Dato' Chuah Thean Teng * Batik Painting

kiddolucas lee 27 Aug 2006

His legacy has spawned a line of Batik artists labouring to emulate his lofty and very singular standard of finishing.

I recently met the soft-spoken Chuah at his gallery in Batu Ferringhi(Penang Island), now operated by his three sons - all artists trained under him.

The place is named Yahonggallery - the Fujian dailect for Coconut trees in the Wind

"Look out " by Dato Chuah Thean Teng

kiddolucas lee 27 Aug 2006

Chuah speaks and hears excellently well for his age. I am old. I cannot walk, he said, laughing feebly, as he slowly led me to one of his old murals.

There is no particular secret for his longevity. He has been known to practise "tai-chi ", and lives contentedly with his family in the same building which houses the gallery, between green hills and a breezy sea.

"Padi planting" by dato' Chuah Thean Teng

kiddolucas lee 27 Aug 2006

He still paints in Chinese ink and in Batik, but has understandably slowed down.

Everyday, he takes his morning walk and rests, and then he paints, his eldest son, Siew Teng, 60, said.

In his younger days, he could finish a few paintings in one month. But now he takes a few months to finish one work.

Chuah s images have become icons of an unadulterated Asian romance with rustic tranquillity.

"BreastFeed"

kiddolucas lee 27 Aug 2006

UNESCO famously used his pictures for its greeting cards, as have publications like Reader s Digest.

His works, packed with robust geometric outlines and vivid colours, radiate with serene celebration of rural life, with themes like pastoral labour and kampung living.

Motherhood is a recurring subject; images of childrearing and breastfeeding fill his collection.

In fact, unknown to many, Chuah s most sensitive influence was his own mother.

My grandmother liked him a lot and took good care of him, Siew Teng revealed.

My father always called the bond between mother and child true love. It is not like the superficial love among couples& Motherly love is universal, it exists in people of every race.

"Combing Hair " by Dato' Chuah Thean Teng

kiddolucas lee 27 Aug 2006

These calm but powerful images only reflect the immense patience Chuah, quiet and reserved, put into his creative process.

For Batik making is an arduous, drawn out experience. It requires repeated applications of dyeing, waxing and drying, each a lengthy, time-consuming process.

Chuah sometimes performed the rounds at least a dozen times for one painting alone.

And thus he gradually experimented, honing his technique. He came to ingeniously use sunlight to induce delicate changes in colour; he discovered just the right temperatures for wax to be placed on cloth to preserve tonality.

"Trishaws" by dato' Chuah Thean Teng

kiddolucas lee 27 Aug 2006

As it is, the Batik-making routine for sarongs and decorative cloth is already a painstaking human effort.

The use of batik techniques as a medium of fine art, Chuah once admitted, is even more complicated.

No surprise then that Chuahs sons feel incensed today when they come across commercial tourist products bearing counterfeit images of his paintings - complete with the likeness of his signature.

"Women & Flower" by dato' Chuah Thean Teng

kiddolucas lee 27 Aug 2006

Good art is not easy, Siew Teng said. There are Indonesian companies copying pictures my father made and selling them in the market.

A lot of people are also doing imitation Batik. Its very convenient to use machines and just label it Batik.

But it is very important that we keep to this original tradition of the wax-and-dye process.

"Fruit Season" by dato' Chuah Thean Teng

kiddolucas lee 27 Aug 2006

Chuah had picked up the batik concept in China where wax dyeing was traditionally practised in some areas.

But it was only during the Japanese occupation of the Second World War, when he came across Indonesia batik that his technical expertise grew.

He later started a factory in Air Itam(Penang), but it failed commercially. The idea then hit him to combine his Batik knowledge and his artistic training, on the basic principles of painting.

Even as he built his reputation for a style distinctly his own, he single-handedly elevated the status of batik with other mediums like watercolour, oil and acrylic.

Chuah once said twenty years ago: It is always wrenching to part with a painting, but that is the nature of my work.

It was a work that delivered to the world a lifetime's gift of a Truly Malaysian Art form. *** Datuk Chuah Thean Tengs

"Mother & Son" by Dato' Chuah Thean Teng

kiddolucas lee 27 Aug 2006

I m sharing this Master s True Batik works coz I too came & born from the same Island Penang

* Dont forget to pronounce 'BATIK' as " bar tekk"

P. Merewether 27 Aug 2006

Thank you! What a nice thread! Some of this work is achingly beautiful.

Makes me wonder if a book of his art has been published? You have quite a good start on one? Ever think of getting their permission to do one?

Bar-tekk hey? And all these years I've been saying Bat-teek - hmmmm.

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