Painting History

PETER LEE
(Extracted from Jan-Mar 2004 Issue of The Peranakan)

In his new exhibition Sayang, Desmond Sim opens wider the dusty forgotten tradition of Peranakan painting.

Is there such a thing as Peranakan Art? Do we have a painting tradition? Spying into the rumah abus of Malacca, Penang and Singapore, paintings are certainly not in short supply, although they are mainly portraits executed by non-Peranakans. The oldest ones seem to be Chinese-style ancestral portraits in watercolour on paper or silk, of rather grim looking men and women in Ming or Qing period costume. Then there are the many ‘naïve’ Western-style portraits by Chinese artists, representing the Chinese artists, representing the Chinese artisan’s pioneering attempts to deal with perspective and chiaroscuro (shadow and light).

Chronologically, these were followed by realistic portraits in oils by artists, many of whom we still know nothing about. The most recognizable names that keep popping up are Low Kway Song and Low Kway Soo, two Baba brothers who were known portraitists in the early twentieth century. Their subjects include prominent Peranakans such as Tan Jiak Kim, Oei Tiong Ham and Tan Cheng Lock. Both brothers are credited in local art histories as being modern art pioneers, and their works include accomplished, academic-style paintings such as Lynx (1921) and Thai Temple (1923). The Low brothers belonged to possibly the earliest Western art group in Singapore, the Amateur Drawing Association, which was founded in 1909 by a group of Babas including Dr Lim Boon Keng. It is also interesting to note that Low Kway Song’s son, the late Lucky Low, was for a brief period a committee member of The Peranakan Association.

But sadly, there is a huge gap of more than fifty years between these works and those of the next Peranakan artist, Martin Loh, whose expressive paintings in the 1990s captured the imagination of many Singaporeans. Depicting domestic Peranakan scenes and exploring the relationship between family members, lovers and friends. Loh’s colourful works on paper captured the sense of nostalgia that many Peranankans were feeling in the 1980s and 1990s for the halcyon days when life seemed both simpler and grander.

Sayang is Sim’s 6th exhibition explored the various nuances of the word saying- from the love between parent and child, as a term of endearment between lovers, and as an expression of regret, especially over something wasteful, unfinished or unexpectedly coming to an end. His first exhibition was held jointly in 1992 with Martin Loh, with whom he had been sharing an apartment since the last 1980s. “We were experimenting, sketching and painting a year before that,” Sim explains. In 1996, he moved to his own apartment in Tiong Baru.

The artistic connection between the two artists is still evident in their works, especially in subject matter. Where Loh’s works are more fluid, multicoloured and pictorially dense. Sim, however, has come into his own with eye-catching canvasses in luminous colours that echo the spirit of art deco portraiture. The emphasis is on fields of colour and pattern, which resonates with the traditional Asian method of creating pictures. One sees this especially in southeast Asian paintings and textiles.

Half the 19 paintings have been sold, and a gallery in the UK is looking at taking the paintings over to London for another show.

Sim is, as we all know, an award-winning playwright. Painting has been a relatively recent serious preoccupation, although he had learnt pencil drawing from a Chinese painting teacher when he was about 9 years old. While in the army Sim developed his interest in art and graphic design by attending part-time courses. During university holidays in the early 1980s he produced collages that were exhibited at bistros and cafes, selling quite a few of them.

On why he has ventured into this field, he explains: “Just because there has not been a history of Peranakan painting, doesn’t mean there can never be such a tradition. The Peranakan culture in southeast Asia was a totally re-constructed one. Our forefathers came as labourers, traders, businessmen… fighting for survival, fleeing starvation. All the beautiful porcelain, furniture, refinement, all came later. All were recreated in the image of a China they remembered. We can create art, culture and beauty in the image that we remember, appreciate and love. If there was no history in Pera-nakan painting… then we will make one.”
Watch out for his November exhibition at the same venue- Nativity Nonyas, which is timedfor the Christmas season. This show will present icon-like images of figures in Peranakan costume. These “Madonnas n kebayas” will be Sim’s take on Renaissance Christian imagery, which depicted biblical stories in contemporary and indigenous settings and costumes.