Lot 4: Chong Fah Cheong (b. 1946) Untitled

Chong Fah Cheong (b. 1946)
Untitled
1981

signed and dated 3-81
mixed media on wood

83 by 157 cm.
32 5/8 by 61 6/8 in.
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Provenance
Private Collection, Singapore

張華昌
無題
一九八一年作

簽名：F. C. Chong 3-81
綜合媒體 木板

來源
現新加坡私人藏家直接購自藝術家本人

The passage through any doorway marks the transition of place and time: am I leaving and saying goodbye or have I just come home and am I saying hello? The experience of entering or leaving has been the pivotal point of my many adventures and experiences.

— Chong Fah Cheong

Lot 4 Untitled, an early wooden collage from Chong Fah Cheong's Townhouse series, was from a sell-out exhibition at the Alpha Gallery in November 1981. Recently, being reunited with the work he had not seen for 40 years reminded Chong of his starting point, his past and recognition of recurring leitmotifs still present in his oeuvre.

He recollects how he bought pieces of plywood, cut out various shapes, then glued them on larger wooden surfaces to create a symphony of contrasting shapes. Glue was then spread on specific areas in a similar manner to the batik making process and used as resistance.

The Townhouse series is, to the artist on one level, a purely aesthetic exercise in the beauty of abstraction. However, a certain reverence is also paid to the great British modernists Nicholson, Hepworth, Moore and, we must not forget, Singapore's Cheong Soo Pieng. Chong was an art student in Birmingham and on his return to Singapore, he felt a desire to search for his own voice and identity, questioning his Catholic upbringing—as a noviciate—and his Peranakan (people of mixed Chinese and Malay) heritage.