Literature Review

As highlighted earlier, Redza Piyadasa and T. K. Sabapathy (Reference Piyadasa and Sabapathy1979) framed the style as a synthesis of Chinese pictorial traditions and School-of-Paris modernism, with the exhibition displaying works primarily in oil and water colour in their study of Nanyang style. Although Chinese ink was acknowledged as part of this synthesis, the catalog did not articulate ink painting as a distinct modernist formation. This marginalisation was not accidental or curatorial selection. Rather, it reflects a broader art-historical tendency to understand modernism through Euro-American narratives of artistic development, in which Asian ink-based practices have often been positioned as traditional rather than modern (Clark Reference Clark1993; Elkins Reference Elkins2010). As a result, ink-based art has frequently been excluded from discussions of modernist expression, despite its capacity for experimentation, abstraction, and formal innovation (Winther-Tamaki Reference Winther-Tamaki2018; Wong Reference Wong2019).

Recent exhibitions continue to privilege pictorial modernism. Exhibitions like Encountering Cheong Soo Pieng (NUS Museum 2010) emphasised the artist’s early oil and watercolour works, Chua Mia Tee: Directing the Real (National Gallery Singapore 2021) framed Chua as a leading realist painter in Singapore’s modern art narrative, More recently, Cheong Soo Pieng: Layer by Layer (National Gallery Singapore 2024) also focused on material studies of painting and drawing, further reinforcing the dominance of Western-derived pictorial practices over modern ink. This curatorial and scholarly focus has also indirectly reinforced the marginal position of ink painting within narratives of Southeast Asian modernism.

It must be highlighted how the use of ink, rice paper, and Chinese brushes symbolises a deep connection to the enduring continuity of Chinese cultural heritage. Ink painting has held a central position in the Chinese art tradition for over a millennium. From the Tang dynasty (618–907), where landscape painting flourished in the Song (960–1279) and Ming (1368–1644) dynasties, where Literati painting reached its intellectual and aesthetic peak by integrating poetry, calligraphy, and ink composition, ink developed into a highly codified cultural form (Sullivan Reference Sullivan1996; Wu Reference Wu and Hearn2013). While ink painting has long been regarded as a culturally codified and historically continuous tradition within Chinese art, the practices of modern ink in Southeast Asia cannot be understood solely through this lineage.

During the period of social and political unrest in China, many Nanyang pioneer artists received their early education at Beaux-Arts-style institutions in China during the 1930s. Chen Chong Swee studied at the Xinhua Academy of Fine Arts in Shanghai, while Chen Wen Hsi first enrolled at the Shanghai College of Art before transferring to the Xinhua Academy. Cheong Soo Pieng first studied at the Xiamen Fine Art Academy and later continued his training at the Xinhua Academy of Fine Arts in Shanghai, although his studies were interrupted by the outbreak of war. This educational background exposed these artists to Chinese ink traditions, Western pictorial methods, and emerging modernist ideas, which later informed the hybrid visual strategies they developed in postcolonial Southeast Asia (Andrews et al. Reference Andrews, Shen, Watt and Shen1998; Clark Reference Clark1993; Ong Reference Ong2006; Sullivan Reference Sullivan1996). Such exposure to European modernism was significant as the transformation through these institutions influenced the diasporic experience of artists in Southeast Asia, where they synthesised their artworks with the regional contexts (Low Reference Low and Munro2012).

Compared to the abundant scholarship on modern ink painting in mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong where discourse centres on modernisation, abstraction, and national aesthetics, the development of modern ink in Malaysia and Singapore has received far less academic attention. In China, the modernisation of ink is often framed within narratives of cultural reform and political ideology (Andrews Reference Andrews, Shen, Watt and Shen1998; Sullivan Reference Sullivan1996), while in Taiwan and Hong Kong, it is discussed through themes of cultural continuity, exile, and Sinophone expression (Chiu Reference Chiu, Chiu and Genocchio2010; Gao Reference Gao2012) Consequently, this study addresses a vital perspective on the discourse on ink painting within the Southeast Asian context.

Before we go on further, it is important to clarify what we mean by “modern ink painting” in this context. Elkins (Reference Elkins2010) does not see this term as strictly as a Western art-historical periodisation, but more as an expressive mode rooted in contemporaneity, experimentation, and localised experience. Ink painting emphasises ink, brush, and rice paper as mediums, focusing on the expressive qualities of ink and the artist’s mastery of minimalist mark-making and fluid brushwork (Winther-Tamaki Reference Winther-Tamaki2018; Wong Reference Wong2019). Therefore, the term “modern ink painting” distinguishes itself from the classical literati aesthetics in both form and philosophy. Unlike traditional ink painting, which privileges symbolic brushwork and philosophical content, the term modern ink painting that we used here emphasises spontaneity, abstraction, and experimentation (Winther-Tamaki Reference Winther-Tamaki2018; Wong Reference Wong2019).

The emergence of modern ink painting in Southeast Asia must be situated within the broader historical context of decolonisation in the post–World War II era, where there was a shift from literati lineage to modernist expression of ink painting in parallel with the artists’ own evolving and shifting cultural identity. As the British colonial rule in Malaya and Singapore weakened and local nationalist movements gained strength, Chinese diaspora artists encountered new challenges in negotiating cultural identity and belonging in rapidly transforming post-colonial societies (Low Reference Low2015). Although ink painting is traditionally associated with Chinese literati aesthetics, it can also be an aesthetic form that captures the shifting identities in a postcolonial context (Chua Reference Chua and Goh2011; Wong Reference Wong2019). This transformation was as much ideological as it was formal. It simultaneously challenged essentialist concepts of Chinese cultural purity and the colonial hierarchies that had long marginalised non-Western artistic expressions (Bernards Reference Bernards2018; Clark Reference Clark1993).

The modern art of Singapore and Malaysia was integrating inherited techniques with localised visual vocabularies and modernist experimentation (Chong Reference Chong2010; Sabapathy Reference Sabapathy1983). Through this process, we can argue that artists reclaimed agency by positioning modern ink painting within the visual culture of their newly emerging postcolonial nations through their depictions of landscapes, peoples, and everyday scenes.

Methodological Approach and Theoretical Framework

Chen Wen Hsi, Chen Chong Swee, and Cheong Soo Pieng were chosen because they exemplify the pioneer generation of Chinese immigrant artists who received traditional and Western art training in China before relocating to Singapore. Each artist used ink painting to respond to the local environment, worked within art institutions, and took part in regional artistic circles in postcolonial Southeast Asia. The artworks discussed in this paper have been chosen based on a set of criteria that reflected the cultural hybridity, diasporic identity, and artistic innovation within the selected ink paintings that they produced. The artworks selected have been produced primarily using Chinese ink, pigment colour, brush, and rice paper. The chosen pieces demonstrated a wide range of techniques that reflected their stylistic modern ink practice transformations, with subject matter ranging from figural depictions to abstract compositions.

The formal analysis will be discussed through the use of ink and brushwork, spatial organisation, compositional elements, and will identify how traditional Chinese techniques are adapted, abstracted, or disrupted. The discussion on the historical and contextual analysis places each work within specific moments of the artists’ migration experience, institutional affiliations (e.g., NAFA), and the sociopolitical conditions of postcolonial Malaya and Singapore.

The discussion will be tied to Stuart Hall’s concept of cultural identity as both “being” and “becoming,” especially in the discussion of how these artworks are connected to their cultural origins while actively forming new identities shaped by their environment and diaspora experience. On top of that, Homi Bhabha’s notion of hybridity and the “Third Space” will allow us to contextualise and argue how, through these artworks, new meanings could emerge at the intersections of these different cultural systems.

Both Observers and Contributors: Chinese Immigrant Artists from Shanghai to Malaya/Singapore

As previously mentioned, many artists migrated from China during periods of intense political unrest and were shaped by an educational environment deeply influenced by Western art. Ong Zhen Min (Reference Ong2006: 110) noted how, “… (t)his marked a new generation of artists who were more distanced from Chinese art. However, they were also the first group that was, at least, familiar with, if not proficient in, both Western and Chinese art traditions.” The period of political unrest and social upheaval in China prompted the migration of many Chinese intellectuals and artists to Southeast Asia, where they sought new opportunities and greater artistic freedom. For example, Chen Chong Swee arrived in 1931, while Cheong Soo Pieng and Chen Wen Hsi arrived in 1946 and 1948, shortly after World War II and during the Chinese Civil War (National Library Board Singapore 2021a; Ong Reference Ong2006).

When Nanyang pioneer artists settled in Malaya and Singapore, it can be argued that they began their artistic work as observers of a new environment through the subject matter that they painted. Their works often show local plants, village life, and familiar architecture painted with traditional brush techniques in this new geographical location that they migrated to, reflecting a way of seeing that is both observational and sentimental (Ong Reference Ong2006). Such visual subject matter and themes demonstrate their role as observers in Nanyang. An approach that both differentiated and positioned them within the regional art scene (National Library Board Singapore 2021b).

In Chen Chong Swee’s Homeward Bound, a woman and her child are shown walking along a quiet village path, set against a backdrop of towering coconut trees and a thatched dwelling. This painting shows his effort in observing and localizing ink painting by embedding tropical subject matter within a classical visual discipline – bridging Chinese aesthetic traditions with Malayan everyday life. His precise lines of the three trunks, the thatched house, and the outline of the female figure in the work further conveyed his measured, observant attitude, revealing his attempts to comprehend and record a newly encountered environment.

Yet, he breaks away from traditional Chinese figures while still emphasizing the delicacy and restraint of Chinese brushwork. In an essay written in 1948, Chen expressed his preference for the delicacy and restraint of Chinese brushwork over Western techniques, valuing the refined elegance inherent in Chinese painting. He explains,

His work demonstrates his chosen composition that balances verticality with gentle movement, as the repeated coconut trunks frame the depth of the scene while receding in mist. The warm tones of ochre and muted pinks lend a tranquil, almost nostalgic quality. Chen’s brushwork is restrained yet precise, reflecting literati values of control and clarity, even as the subject departs from classical Chinese motifs. Chen’s statement above reflected his conviction on how artistic refinement arises from disciplined brush control and compositional balance rather than from chromatic or the richness of colour, as could be seen in the work, and the delicacy of line and structure becomes a mode of visual reflection.

His persistent use of literati brushwork continues the aesthetic discipline of Chinese painting, although the subject matter is a local woman in her kampung or village surroundings. This reflects A deep attachment to the cultural origins of ink and its technique that could be seen through the consistent control of brush pressure, subtle modulation of ink, and restrained use of colour reveals his firm commitment to Chinese aesthetic ideals of harmony and order could be observed in the painting as well. Yet these works could be seen as neither documentary records nor romanticised visions; rather, we could argue this as an active process of visual negotiation of transforming the local subject matter through a modern pictorial expression.

Unsurprisingly, Ong Ian Li and Ahmad argue that such artists should not be understood as merely reflecting or recording their cultural experiences; rather, they exercised agency in shaping a visual language that came to be recognised as Malayan in spirit and content (Ong Ian Li and Ahmad Reference Ong Ian Li and Ahmad2015: 6). As these artists settled into their new host country, they found themselves having to choose between the artistic approaches they brought from China or to be inspired by the diverse cultural influences of their new surroundings, which we have discussed earlier. Artworks became a site for impetus for artistic innovation, where traditional Chinese ink painting techniques were infused with modernist ideas and local tropical themes, marking the beginning of a complex process of cultural adaptation and identity transformation of these artists.

The observer role also granted the Nanyang artists a uniquely important position – they are neither fully foreign nor entirely assimilated. Homi Bhabha uses the term “Third Space” (Bhabha Reference Bhabha1994) to discuss this complexity. The artwork above can also be seen as a dynamic interplay between Chinese ink cultural traditions—and the idea of “becoming,” shaped by the lived realities of Southeast Asia that could see through the selected subject matter of the artist – a woman and her child walking in a quiet village path, with thatched house and coconut trees, a very common scene in the region.

However, it is equally important to recognise these artists not only as cultural observers but subsequently they too become cultural contributors. As they moved from initial observation to deeper engagement, the Nanyang artists began to shape and reshape the visual identity of Southeast Asia through their production of modern ink painting. By incorporating local subjects, modern styles, and tropical landscapes, the Nanyang pioneers were no longer merely recording these visually different experiences; more importantly, they were actively constructing a new aesthetic approach grounded in local place. T.K. Sabapathy observed that the Nanyang artists celebrated “localness” as a “vital, vibrant legacy,” imbuing their works with a sense of locality that transcended ethnic or diasporic boundaries (Sabapathy Reference Sabapathy1979: 44). Through the discussion of the artwork above, we observe how Chen Chong Swee maintained a deep connection to his Chinese cultural “being,” while also actively engaging in the process of “becoming” through how he translated his local experience (Hall Reference Hall and Mongia2021).

The 1952 Bali trip was often cited in the studies of Nanyang art. Liu Kang, Chen Chong Swee, Cheong Soo Pieng, and Chen Wen Hsi pooled their own funds and set out for Bali (Ong Reference Ong2006: 110). During the trip, they observed village life, ritual activities, market scenes, and local landscapes, experiences that redirected their artistic attention toward Southeast Asian subjects and contributed to the development of a localised Nanyang visual language (Kwok Reference Kwok1996: 47; Sabapathy Reference Sabapathy1980: 6–7).

Following the 1952 Bali trip, Chen Chong Swee produced After Bath, an ink-and-colour painting that reflects his renewed sensitivity to local life and the tropical environment. It demonstrates a highly localised visual expression of three female figures dressed in sarongs – a long piece of local batik cloth wrapped around the body. Chen Chong Swee constructs a calm yet psychologically charged composition through the triangulation of three female figures. The arrangement establishes a stable triangular structure that stabilises the scene and produces a sense of balance across the pictorial field. Each figure functions as a point within this triangle, and their eye lines create an internal network of gazes that compose the quiet domestic setting.

The triangular composition and intersecting gazes therefore serve a dual function with compositional stability and psychological connection. This reflects Chen’s evolving observational approach, in which everyday life is not merely recorded but structured through relations of seeing and being seen. Unlike Homeward Bound (Figure 1), where the figures are viewed from behind, “After Bath” introduces a direct exchange of sight that opens the scene toward the viewer, marking a shift from us, only observing to a more engaging visual dialogue with the subject matter.

Figure 1.

Chen Chong Swee Homeward Bound (c. 1940s) Chinese ink and colour on paper, 143.7 x 52.5 cm. Gift of the artist's family. Collection of National Gallery Singapore.

In terms of brushwork, the painting is characterised by bold, calligraphic lines that simultaneously emphasise the form and gesture of the three main figures. These brushstrokes are not only descriptive but expressive, showcasing a strong sense of linear rhythm drawn from Chinese literati aesthetics. The use of Chinese mineral pigments, such as malachite green, azurite, and ochre, creates a restrained but harmonious colour palette. The women’s blouses are malachite (stone-green), while their skirts are rendered in cinnabar (vermilion red), producing a vibrant contrast between tones. Azurite or indigo (stone-blue) and ochre define the distant trees. This controlled interplay of colour demonstrates how he adapted the luminous tropical light within the disciplined harmony of Chinese literati aesthetics. It is grounding the work in the traditions of Chinese colour ink painting while making it visually shown in a tropical context.

In this work, Chen Chong Swee neither reproduces Chinese ink conventions nor Western realism; instead, he chose a hybrid visual representation that reflects his diasporic identity in observing the Malayan landscape. Exhibited in Strokes of Life: The Art of Chen Chong Swee (Low and Cai Reference Low and Heng2017), “After Bath” exemplifies how Chen’s art participates in the ongoing formation of modern visual identity of the region, which is grounded in the memory of cultural origin yet constantly reshaped through adaptation and reinterpretation. The act of depicting local women within a domestic, tropical setting reflects a moment of recognition of inherited visual and cultural traditions that remain rooted in Chinese pictorial sensibility. Yet, the shift in compositional perspective, particularly the direct exchange of gazes, and the sense of mutual observation. Here, identity is no longer fixed within the framework of Chinese painting; rather, it is reconstituted through lived encounters and new social environments. The work thus embodies an in-between space where visual representation negotiates continuity and transformation, mirroring the broader condition of diasporic subjectivity.

The Cultural Identity in the “Third Space”

As mentioned earlier, the relationship between creative motivation and Nanyang art practice was first proposed by Sabapathy (Reference Sabapathy1979: 44), who states that, “The ‘localness of the place’ was consciously adopted as a program for activity, manifesting an aesthetic position by all the Nanyang artists.” It can be positioned how the notion of “local” as observed by Sabapathy operates on both local life and local identity. While the former refers to everyday visual subjects and environments, the latter denotes a fluid and negotiated sense of belonging as local identity in this context is not fixed but shaped by continual interaction with cultural, social, and political forces, allowing for a dynamic understanding of place that evolves over time. Both Chen Chong Swee’s works (Figures 1 & 2), as discussed prior, exemplify this fluidity of identity formation through the complex process by which Chinese diaspora artists internalised and reimagined local surroundings through ink as an inherited medium.

Figure 2.

Chen Chong Swee After Bath (1952) Chinese ink and colour on paper. 90 x 118 cm. Gift of the artist’s family. Collection of National Gallery Singapore.

Nonetheless, it must be highlighted how the postcolonial context of Southeast Asia, particularly in Malaysia and Singapore during the 1950s–1970s, profoundly shaped the cultural field in which the Nanyang artists operated. Following the end of British colonial rule and the rise of nationalist movements, both states embarked on distinct paths of identity formation. After Singapore’s separation from Malaysia in 1965, these artists formally adopted a new national identity as Singaporeans. This political transformation had profound implications for artistic discourse, as art increasingly became a space for negotiating shared cultural narratives (Chua Reference Chua and Goh2011). In Malaysia, modern and postmodern artistic developments in the post-independence period were likewise closely tied to broader debates over cultural identity and national formation (Piyadasa Reference Piyadasa and Clark1993). In the early years of independence, the absence of a stable ‘Malayan or Malaysian’ art identity meant that artists operated within a shifting ‘plural society,’ whose inherent tensions and uncertainties created space for new visual negotiations (Abdullah Reference Abdullah2010). As Bhabha pointed out, “Such act does not merely recall the past as social cause or aesthetic precedent; it renews the past, refiguring it as a contingent ‘in-between’ space, that innovates and interrupts the performance of the present” (Bhabha Reference Bhabha1994:7).

As such, it can be argued that the “local” as deployed by the Nanyang artists becomes such a third space—one that produces cultural meanings that are neither purely inherited nor entirely imposed, but hybrid. These conditions created a complex social landscape in which Chinese diaspora artists had to navigate tensions between ethnic belonging and national integration, especially in the context of Malaysia and Singapore’s separation. The push for local cultural production that was recognisably “Malayan” or “Singaporean” intersected with ongoing debates about authenticity, tradition, and modernity. Understanding this context is essential to understanding the hybrid strategies of the artists employed in their efforts to construct meaningful artistic identities. Thus, their engagement with “localness” was never simply a representational project—it was a matter of exuding their belonging through the artworks that they produced.

As a case in point, Cheong Soo Pieng’s Drying Salted Fish (Figure 3) exemplifies how Nanyang artists employed Chinese ink techniques to construct a hybrid visual approach rooted in local life. The painting presents a working kampung scene with the upper portion featuring a row of suspended salted fish, the central area focuses on a man, three women, and children working, and the lower space contains a few baskets filled with fish and a goat.

Figure 3.

Cheong Soo Pieng Drying Salted Fish (1978) Chinese ink and colour on cloth, 55.5 x 88.5 cm. Collection of National Heritage Board, Singapore.

Beyond compositional structure, Cheong’s manipulation of colour and texture plays a critical role in articulating the emotional tone and symbolic layering of the scene. Similar to Chen Chong Swee’s After Bath (1952), the trees in the foreground are rendered with refined and meticulously controlled brushwork that reflects Cheong Soo Pieng’s mastery of gong bi (meticulous brush technique). The simplified circular motifs and repetitive brush marks are not loosely expressive but carefully constructed, revealing a deliberate precision that differs from the more spontaneous xie yi (free hand brush technique) approach seen in Chen Chong Swee’s works.

Cheong Soo Pieng’s Drying Salted Fish also holds a significant status within Singapore’s system of national symbolism. In 1999, the painting was selected by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to appear on the reverse of the fifty-dollar note in the Portrait Series, representing one of the key achievements in local artistic development. According to MAS’s official explanation, this selection was intended to “reflect Singapore’s contributions in the field of art” and to visually articulate the nation’s multicultural evolution and identity formation (Monetary Authority of Singapore 2024). By featuring a work that depicts rural Malay kampung life on the national currency, the state not only acknowledged the role of Nanyang art in shaping local culture but also established a national cultural symbol that fuses Chinese artistic heritage with Southeast Asian subject matter.

As noted by Yeo (Reference Yeo2011) in the archival publication BiblioAsia, Drying Salted Fish represents “a silent acknowledgment of the nation’s roots.” The painting portrays not a modern urban landscape, but a reflective image of local village life, shaped jointly by early Chinese and Malay communities. This choice of subject underscores Cheong’s keen sensitivity to local lived experience and mirrors the state’s broader strategy of cultivating a shared sense of historical community. Thus, the selection of “Drying Salted Fish” as a national currency image should be understood as part of Singapore’s visual-cultural strategy: the painting exists not only as a work of art, but also as a symbolic convergence of national identity, cultural diversity, historical memory, and modernity, as an emblem of Singapore’s attempt to construct a local modernity in the postcolonial era.

Hybrid Approach of Abstract Ink Art

Building upon the previous discussion of localness as a negotiated identity space, it is also important to recognise how the formal aspects of modern ink painting, especially in the context of abstract art style, contributed to the hybrid visual language developed by the Nanyang artists. Before analyzing their artworks in detail, we must first consider how hybridity could be argued as also operating in their modern ink art practice. According to Bhabha (Reference Bhabha1994: 38), hybridity arises when distinct cultures intersect, resulting in the production of new identities that transcend rigid cultural boundaries. This is evident in their fusion of Eastern artistic traditions – Chinese ink painting, and Western modernist influences – Abstract Expressionism. Yet this interaction does not unfold in a uniform manner, nor does it always lead to the same visual or conceptual outcomes.

After earlier influences of the School of Paris and localised Southeast Asian subjects, the Nanyang style gave way to new engagements with global art movements. Abstract Expressionism, along with other international currents, increasingly shaped the trajectory of ink painting in Singapore and Malaysia (Chow and Abdullah Reference Chow and Abdullah2024a, Reference Chow and Abdullah2024b). This stylistic shift is significant, as it reflects how the hybrid aesthetics of the Nanyang artists evolved, not only as a cultural synthesis but also as a conscious response to the changing global art trend. For example, some of Cheong Soo Pieng’s modern ink practice represents a distinctive and hybrid approach to the medium, which eventually departed from conventional Chinese ink traditions and was liberated from its classical and traditional constraints of ink painting.

In “Scenery” (Figure 4), Cheong transformed scenes of local life into semi-abstract compositions that synthesise diverse cultural influences drawing from the heavily expressive ink as a physical medium rather than its traditional symbolic function. The composition is built almost entirely through varied brush techniques: fine calligraphic lines, broad gestural strokes, tightly spaced hatching, and scattered dotting coexist within a vertically oriented, non-figurative form. The ink is applied in contrasting states using dry ink, textural washes, and empty white spaces, demonstrating Cheong’s sensitivity to the medium of ink and brush. These tactile expressions evoke what Chinese art theory refers to as “ink play”, emphasizing process over iconography (Gilloch and Kang Reference Gilloch and Kang2016). The palette remains restrained, grounded primarily in tones of black and grey with only subtle hints of colour. Cheong’s restrained but deliberate use of red, yellow, and blue square motifs perhaps echoes Kandinsky’s early theories of colour and abstraction developed between 1910 and 1913 (Kandinsky [Reference Kandinsky and Sadler1912] Reference Kandinsky and Sadler1977).

Figure 4.

Cheong Soo Pieng Scenery (1960) Chinese ink and colour on paper, 93 x 44 cm. Collection of National Gallery Singapore.

It can be suggested that this painting perhaps draws on principles associated with Cubism and Western abstraction, and yet remains grounded in the material sensibility of Chinese ink. As art historian T. K. Sabapathy (Reference Sabapathy, Mashadi, Lingham, Schoppert and Toh2018: 233) observes, “Soo Pieng transformed norms, extended limits, created new ways of making art, and pointed to directions that still remain to be explored.” Similarly, a curatorial essay by Asia Art Center highlights how Cheong “departed from his quick, impressionist ink sketches and transformed them into larger mixed-media landscape abstractions… challenging his abstract paintings even further… presenting materials for what they are and blurring the line between art and non-art” (Asia Art Center 2021). As Anne Goh (Reference Goh2021) also pointed out how this period deepened Cheong’s diasporic visual vocabulary, integrating colour-field gestures with European abstractionism, and a key example that will be discussed further is “Universe” (Figure 5), created shortly after his visit to Europe in the 1960s. Perhaps it catalyzed a new phase in his practice.

Figure 5.

Cheong Soo Pieng Universe (1966) Chinese ink and colour on paper, 136.3 x 171.5 cm. Collection of National Gallery Singapore.

Influenced by the abstract movement and artists such as French-Chinese artist Zao Wou-Ki (1920–2013), he developed a series of lyrical, nature-inspired ink works. Here, Cheong translates the expressive fluidity of ink into an expansive visual idiom: the work spans large paper or canvas surfaces, employing broad ink washes interspersed with splashes of oil pigment. The painting’s ambiguous, non-figurative space evokes Zao Wou-Ki’s atmospheric abstraction, wherein ink and oil converge in an oscillation between lyricism and depth after his return from Europe. Universe thus becomes a testament to his formal exploration of fusing disparate abstract languages with a conceptual reinvention of landscape at an elemental level.

In Universe (Figure 5), Cheong constructs a visual language rooted in traditional Chinese ink-related medium and composition, yet radically reconfigures them through a non-representational structure of the painting. The work resists narrative and naturalism that is conventional in ink painting approach, but instead it emphasises on gestural spontaneity, tonal layering, and material texture throughout the painting. His dry brush technique, dispersed dots, and rhythmically lines disengage ink painting from its historic literary associations and realign it as a medium of subjective expression and experimentation familiar in Western art. Cheong may not fit the definition of a traditional ink painter; rather, his practice can be described as “ink-based.” Throughout his career, on both paper and canvas, Cheong blended abstraction with representation, evolving toward a body of work defined by gestural spontaneity and intuitive brushwork.

Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of hybridity shifts the analysis from identity formation to the interstitial conditions through which cultural meanings are produced. For Bhabha (Reference Bhabha1994), hybridity emerges in the “Third Space,” a site of cultural encounter where inherited traditions are not simply employed but actively transformed, marked by tensions and negotiations. As such, we would like to highlight how, through this painting, Cheong insinuated new meaning, reshaped through the way that he played with the differences of tensions and negotiations of traditional and abstractions.

First, the painting echoes the literati ink tradition through its vertical format and brush-based mark-making, yet it abandons conventional landscape imagery and poetic inscription. Second, Cheong rebuilds the composition through abstraction, using washes, textures, and gestural lines to create spatial rhythm and visual tension. As a result, a new language was formed on the rice paper. This work, we argue, becomes a site of negotiation in which abstraction has become a means of expressing diasporic modernity. Within this reading, the modern ink practices of the Nanyang artists can be understood as more than stylistic fusion. Cheong’s work embodies an ongoing negotiation of memory, displacement, and hybridity that reflects both continuity with Chinese traditions and active adaptation to new regional and global contexts.

While the above analysis highlights how abstraction operates as a mode of hybrid negotiation, it is important to note that abstraction in Nanyang modern ink painting does not always function in this way, as not all abstract works sustain a clear engagement with local subject matter or cultural hybridity. In some instances, abstraction shifts toward a more formalist orientation, emphasizing compositional structure, material exploration, and visual language itself. In other cases, artists may move in a different direction, maintaining a closer adherence to traditional ink conventions, resulting in as a more complex field of artistic practice in which multiple approaches could coexist.

A Counterpoint: When Hybridity Becomes Less Direct

Unlike Cheong Soo Pieng, Chen Wen Hsi approached abstraction through a more structural and compositional logic. Chen studied Western abstract art from reproductions and catalogues, borrowing compositional principles from Cubism and Fauvism as visual references in his studio (Kwok Reference Kwok1996; National Library Board Singapore 2024). In his lectures and teaching, Chen emphasised that abstraction “must be structurally sound,” showing his belief in formal discipline and design logic within the practice of ink art (NUS Museum 2008). Although Cheong Soo Pieng’s abstract ink works discussed above also move away from recognisable local subject matter, they can still be read as hybrid experiments because of the way they transform Chinese ink through gestural abstraction, modernist pictorial space, and cross-cultural artistic references. In Cheong’s case, abstraction becomes a site of negotiation, where ink is no longer linked to traditional literati conventions but is reconfigured through international modernism.

Chen Wen Hsi’s Rocky Hill (Figure 6), however, presents a more difficult case for the framework of hybridity. Unlike Homeward Bound, After Bath, or Drying Salted Fish, the painting does not foreground local figures, kampung life, or tropical subject matter. Unlike Cheong’s more gestural abstract ink works, Rocky Hill does not strongly emphasise the expressive release of ink or the tension between ink materiality and Western abstraction. Instead, its visual force lies mainly in chromatic organisation, flattened spatial divisions, and compositional balance. Large areas of blue dominate the surface, while the underlying ink lines are partially absorbed into the overall colour structure. The painting, therefore, appears less as a direct negotiation of cultural identity than as an exploration of pictorial order and formal construction.

Figure 6.

Chen Wen Hsi Rocky Hill (c. 1982) Chinese ink and colour on paper, 180.3 x 97.3 cm. Collection of National Gallery Singapore.

In Rocky Hill (Figure 6), Chen Wen Hsi uses large areas of blue to dominate the composition. The colour flattens the sense of depth and covers the ink outlines below. Sharp edges and balanced spatial divisions show Chen’s interest in combining Western colour abstraction with Chinese brushwork, in which he “masterfully combined expressive Chinese ink and the structural principles of modern Western art” (National Gallery Singapore 2023). Yet, in this work, such a combination does not produce hybridity in the same direct way as the earlier examples. Rather than foregrounding cultural encounter or local experience, the painting directs attention to the internal organisation of form, colour, and space.

For this reason, Rocky Hill functions as a counterpoint within this study. It does not fall outside the history of Nanyang modern ink painting, but it marks a point at which hybridity becomes less direct and more difficult to sustain as the primary interpretive framework. If the earlier works demonstrate how Chinese ink traditions were localised through Southeast Asian subject matter, and if Cheong’s abstract works show how ink could be transformed through international modernist abstraction, Rocky Hill points to another direction: a pictorial exploration in which the signs of locality and diaspora are less visible. This distinction prevents hybridity from becoming an overly general explanation for all Nanyang ink practices. It also clarifies the central claim of this section: Nanyang modern ink painting was not a uniform field of cultural hybridity, but a plural artistic formation in which identity negotiation, local subject matter, abstraction, and formal experimentation coexisted in uneven ways.