Old Shophouse with Spiral Staircase

Credit Line: Collection of SMU

Chua Ek Kay (1947-2008) was one of Singapore's leading contemporary Chinese ink painters. Born in China, Chua came to Singapore with his family in the 1950s. Here he studied Chinese ink painting under Fan Chang Tien. In 1991, he was the first Chinese ink painter to win the United Overseas Bank Painting of the Year Award. He later took up formal training in contemporary art, receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Tasmania in 1994 and a Master of Arts (Honours) in Visual Arts from the University of Western Sydney in 1995. He was awarded the Cultural Medallion in 1999.

One of Chua's most enduring themes was Singapore city streets. It was a subject with personal resonance for him, having lived in a shophouse along Upper Serangoon Road in the 1950s and attended Catholic High School on Queen Street in the 1960s. In these paintings, Chua often used sombre ink with occasional washes of faint colour. People were seldom depicted, giving the monochromatic paintings a sense of alienation and ambivalence as he witnessed the Singapore landscape undergo transition.