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THE STRAITS TIMES TUESDAY, MARCH 13 2012 PAGE C8

Big and bold: Among the works in Wee Beng Chongs exhibition are his calligraphic pieces Song Of Righteousness (above) and Happiness (above right). PHOTOS: SEAH KWANG PENG, COURTESY OF WEE BENG CHONG

Man of many big words

In his first solo show in nine years, master artist Wee Beng Chong goes big on calligraphy
akshita nanda

all-sized and gloriously detailed calligraphy populates master artist Wee Beng Chongs first solo exhibition in nine years. More than 50 scrolls of Chinese ink, , along g with a few seal carvings, g are on display at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts galleries until the middle of next month. Most of the scrolls were completed by the Cultural Medallion recipient over the past 10 years and are on sale for between $25,000 and $250,000 each. Among the most expensive is the majestic 8m-wide and 2m-high Song Of Righteousness, a dense and hypnotic work made of eight separate panels and completed in 2008. Each panel is illustrated with characters from a 13th-century poem of the

same name by warrior-poet Wen Tianxiang. The complete verse refers to the boundless or majestic valour of the people, which will forever remain and the work, like the others on display, is a homage to Chinese culture, Mr Wee, 74, explains in Mandarin via a translator. Each panel was inked perfectly on the first try. No mistakes, he says proudly. If you plan beforehand, you will not make mistakes. It took him several months of practice for each panel, working out rough sketches, perfecting strokes and composition. Chinese calligraphy is something I have been working on for 50 years, he says. Im still not satisfied. Wee, the first visual artist to receive the Cultural Medallion when it was instituted in 1979, is the eldest of 11 siblings born to a utilities contractor and a housewife. He began his artistic career drawing charcoal pictures in the alleys behind his Niven Road home. Most of the neighbours scolded him and poured water on his drawings, but one took him to an art teacher. By age 11, he was drawing portraits of people for money, often working At g from small photographs. p g p 17, he joined the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts,

where his teachers included pioneer artists See Hiang To, Cheong Soo Pieng and Chen Wen Hsi. Students nowadays have it easier, says Wee, a senior teaching fellow at the academy and also the teacher-founder of the long-running Lanting Art Society. In his day, he recalls, the teacher would look at your work and say Hm or Ah!. You didnt know what they meant but that made it even scarier. In his mid-20s, after studying French for some months, he painted the portrait of a tycoon in exchange for a ship ticket to Paris. All my friends were going there to study, so I was very excited and wanted to go too, he says. He studied at Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts from 1964 to 1969 and developed a fondness for large-sized works that remains today. It was only there that I got the idea to do big paintings. In Singapore at the time, they all did small pieces, he says. On his return, he taught art. y His style has evolved over the years, as shown by two works from the 1970s on display now at Nafa. One is a four-panel realistic study of the Great Wall of China, another, a realistic depiction of a bird in a tree, both in stark contrast to the almost abstract cal-

ligraphy of the past decade. You have to stay inventive and creative as an artist, says Wee, who has three children, two of whom are also artists and the third an accountant. Among his experiments are doing calligraphy with oil paints instead of ink. Age has given him a touch of cataract, as he describes it, and hunched shoulders from stooping over the painting table. Yet he dismisses these as minor matters and no obstacle to continued creation. The brain is more important, new ideas can be projected onto the hand he says. akshitan@sph.com.sg

view it A RIDGE, A WORD, A BRUSH: WEE BENG CHONG

Where: Nafa Campus 1, 80 Bencoolen Street, Nafa Galleries 1 & 2 When: Until April 15, 11am to 7pm (Tuesdays to Sundays) Admission: Free