A Wall of History

Credit Line: Gift of Artist 2006, 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.

This artwork is from the Street Scenes Collection, a suite of 30 paintings donated by the artist in 2006 and currently housed at Lee Kong Chian School of Business. The Street Scenes Collection spans two decades of Chua's artistic practice, from 1986 to 2006, and pictures narrow alleyways, temples of worship, old shophouses and historic sites in Singapore, Kathmandu, Yogyakarta and Jiangnan. In later years, he was keener on evoking feelings rather than rendering actual physical architecture. Particularly, his depictions of Singapore city streets—from Little India to Ann Siang Hill—are suffused with feelings of melancholy as he captures history passing through the once-familiar streets he has seen grown, thrived, and waned over time.

A Wall of History (2006) is one of Chua's largest and most abstract street scenes painted during the same period as the water village series. The series was displayed at the "YiXi—Recent Paintings of Chua Ek Kay" exhibition at the Shanghai Art Museum, People's Republic of China in 2005. The marks of history on the wall communicate the artist's feelings of nostalgia and sadness that the traces left by a generation involved in the early development of the island nation of Singapore will soon be erased.

Artist's Inscription:
岛国旧屋屡屡可见，
墙壁如此尽见，
历史痕迹，
二00六年蔡逸溪

In this island nation,
old buildings are a common sight
On their walls I see,
the marks of history.
- Chua Ek Kay, 2006