Cheong Soo Pieng was born in Xiamen, China in 1917. He was one of the influential pioneers of the Nanyang style of art alongside with 4 others. Being one of the few whom had more than 1 art styles and incorporating with both “Chinese ink and Western oil painting techniques” (book 4). Cheong was always “exploring on a wide range of possibilities of the various media of artistic expression and went on several overseas trips where the sights of daily lives as well as the picturesque landscapes of the tropical land, inspired him to create numerous different types of artworks throughout his entire art life.
Soo Pieng have a high level of artistry where he would use fresh techniques differently and at one stage of his life where he painted with…show more content… The trip completely changed Cheong’s approach to art; proving to be a milestone as it was one of the most enduring influences in his life. Throughout that period, Meeting (1956) (fig 2) painted in oil that were of bright and gay colours, where the three female figures sat in pensive attitudes on the steps of a temple doorway, with a dvarapala (door guardian) above them in the art work has elongated limbs, slender and doe-eyed with soulful expressions which were something he was renowned for in his series of Balinese paintings. It was believed that his observation of traditional Southeast Asian arts and craft like the wayang kulit- shadow puppets from Indonesia and further developed after his Bali trip due to Balinese statues. He also uses the technique of cubism selectively to make formal structures more prominent and braids it heavily with symbolic, bold black…show more content… Since Soo Pieng was still under the influence of Europe, he was obsessed with abstract forms and composition and desperately wanted physically break out of the flat 2D surface of paintings through creating the 3D metal relief collages. Untitled (1970s), that was made out of clay resembles an altar, serving as a strong foundation which Soo Pieng had constructed a landscape of familiar pictorial motifs, such as the sun on the left and the dividing tree in the middle which is commonly seen in his paintings. With several other smaller objects which looks unrealistic, causing the viewer to examine closer and crack their heads to figure out what they