Tan Choh Tee: Shadows of Straits Settlements

Official Opening with Guest-of-Honour and Artist in Attendance
Date: Thursday, 20 October 2024, 3 – 4pm
Guest-of-Honour: Lee Khai (Chairman of Penang State Art Gallery)

Talk with Artist-in-Attendance
Tan Choh Tee’s Trips to Penang: Anecdotes and Philosophies
Date: Thursday, 20 October 2024, 4.30 – 5.30pm
Speaker: Ho Sou Ping (Gallery Founder)
RSVP required: kenix@artcommune.com.sg

artcommune gallery is pleased to present Shadows of Straits Settlements, which features a new series of 21 oil paintings by Singapore’s 2nd-generation landscape master, Tan Choh Tee. Focusing on the historic urban environs of Penang, the series is a culmination of three separate trips to Penang between 2022 – 2023, during which the artist endured unpredictable weather conditions and worked energetically to paint the landscapes on-site. 

Tan believes that an artist has to feel emotionally connected with a landscape in order to paint it. Penang, like Singapore, was once part of the Straits Settlements under the British Colonial rule and its landscape and culture today continues to reflect a melting pot of multi-ethnic influences. Mediated by his memories of Singapore in its yesteryears, Penang, saved from the behemothic sword of urban redevelopment, has become reminiscent of the Old Singapore and offers him a continued source of artistic inspiration. This new series of Penang landscapes are marvellously expressed through the artist’s mature brush and palette knife techniques. 

Since the 1980s, Tan has developed a highly personal and recognisable style of landscape painting which eschews photographic details, favouring instead, an emotional and expressive handling of brushwork and colour. His thoughtful renditions of various landscape scenes around Southeast Asia, such as an alley next to a weathered shophouse, a rustic village, a bustling open-air market, local provision stores, and streetside hawkers are bold in colours yet suffused with a mesmerising nostalgia.