Chin Kong Yee’s latest exhibition #tomorrow, which sees him pushing his boundaries as an artist, by experimenting with wearable paintings, video work, and performance. Moved by his experience of “Acqua Alta” in Venice, a natural disaster which saw sea levels rising, causing the city to flood, Kong Yee felt the need to retell the story through his paintings, hoping to amplify an awareness of the pressing need to preserve our environment and society, to the detriment of our future if we leave it1
Chin Kong Yee’s latest exhibition #tomorrow, which sees him pushing his boundaries as an artist, by experimenting with wearable paintings, video work, and performance. Moved by his experience of “Acqua Alta” in Venice, a natural disaster which saw sea levels rising, causing the city to flood, Kong Yee felt the need to retell the story through his paintings, hoping to amplify an awareness of the pressing need to preserve our environment and society, to the detriment of our future if we leave it unattended.
In November 2019, Venice suffered its worst high tide in 50 years. Over 80% of the city was submerged by water, and residents had to flood-proof and barricade their homes and businesses. Many houses, hotels, and restaurants were destroyed. This phenomenon coincided with the Venice Art Biennale 2019, and as a result, some National Pavilions had to close their doors to visitors. Chin Kong Yee found himself in the middle of this situation, being in Venice to carry out his performative work, which saw him walking into the various exhibitions in his wearable painting.
As a painter and a traveler, Kong Yee puts himself in the position of an observer when going to a place, rather than merely visiting as a tourist. Instead of avoiding the flood, he put on a pair of waterproof boots, and continued immersing himself in the city, one that he has always been fascinated and moved by. He recalls, “After the deafening alarm noise to warn us of the water rise, there’s always a peaceful silence”. It was to his surprise that upon returning to Malaysia, he experienced a flash flood that affected his own house. With these incidents taking place one after another, it became clear to him that if we do not come together and channel our efforts towards addressing this pressing situation, our lands will gradually sink and disappear.
Since 2019, he has also been experimenting with the idea of ‘wearable art’, in which he would cut and stitch pieces of the leather based on a pattern before painting on its surface, enabling his paintings to be worn. His signature style of adopting a fish-eye lens perspective and combining the past, present, and future through his “Actually Accorded Painting” (AAP) technique, is yet again present in these recent paintings. The concept of presenting the past, present, and future is also reflected through the different periods of time that are presented through this exhibition, in relation to the pandemic. To a true traveller like Kong Yee, the experience of staying at home for the past 20 months was life changing. Isolated throughout the lockdown, he took himself back to the feeling of being surrounded by people, through 360-degree paintings of market scenes such as Pasar Seni (20192021) and Pasar Ubud - Bali (2014), as well as the night scenery of Venice. Consisting of two interchangeable panels, Summer Night in Venice (2021) allows multiple display arrangements; a technique that he started developing in 2010.