Runway: A solo exhibition by Chow Chin Chuan
“There are two ways of thinking about painting, how not to do it and how to do it; how to do it — with much drawing and little colour; how not to do it — with much colour and little drawing.”
It was a statement made by Vincent van Gogh, a master legend; to his brother Theo van Gogh in April 1882. Vincent van Gogh’s words suggest that a creative artist always has many choices. Whatever choices they make are the best for their work and perfect for that particular time. Moreover, the paintings successfully attract the audience to appreciate its aesthetics.
Chow Chin Chuan, born in Klang, Selangor uses ordinary images found in many houses even in modern days; the bicycle. The bicycle, an early form of transport becomes special and unordinary under his touch. He uses light and shadow captured on the bicycle, which was the attraction to his paintings. The bicycle becomes Chin Chuan’s trademark in his 20 years of career as a painter.
Chin Chuan relates his paintings with the memory of his father and his old man’s bicycle. His father owned a retail shop. Chin Chuan’s job was to help father to send people’s goods to their clients from house to house on the bicycle. Thus the bicycle is nostalgic and holds a sentimental value to the painter. It became his inspirations in his paintings; which he transferred on to the canvases using acrylic, oil or water colour.
Recent paintings of Chow Chin Chuan, shown at the Pinkguy Art Gallery are the best of his works in 2010 and 2011. This exclusive collection from Chin Chuan portrays a series of work all from oil colour. For the 30 years of experience in the art scene; Chow put up 30 pieces of his artworks on display.
Chow Chin Chuan received his formal art education from Kuala Lumpur College of Art in 1983. The activities he saw around him in the early morning hours such as morning market, street hawkers, bread and fish sellers along the streets was part of his creative observation. Chin Chuan cleverly tackled his ordinary images to become interesting scenery on the canvas.
Indirectly, Chin Chuan’s paintings portray the ‘one-ness’ in Malaysia community; the answer to ‘One Malaysia’ is carried out. The activities involved images from the three major races in Malaysian community; Chinese, Malay and Indians besides his ‘sacred bicycle’. The location of the activities travelled along the west of the Peninsular of Malaysia; Penang, Malacca and Selangor.
The technique used in Chin Chuan’s paintings created form as in realistic painting. Colours and some flat areas of the background remind us of pop paintings in the 60’s. These decisions also left our eyes to concentrate more on the figure and bicycle, which both have strokes of paints on them.
Chin Chuan’s hard earned and quality works are rewarded as many of them have been chosen by corporate organizations such as the National Art Gallery, Bank Negara Malaysia, Malaysia Airlines, Petronas and Pacific Bank.
Runway features at PINKGUY Gallery from 26th March – 16th April 2011. We open on Monday – Friday from 10.26am – 7.26pm & Saturday from 10.26am – 5.26pm. Closed Sunday & public holidays.
PINKGUY Gallery is located at A-G-02 Marc Service Residence, Jalan Pinang, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia . Please call 603-2166 2166, or email to pinkguymalaysia@yahoo.com for more information.
Website: http://www.pinkguy.com.my