Chin Kong Yee’s latest exhibition ‘Dancing with Shadows’ comprises of only five major masterpieces. Known for his unique fish eye painting composition; Chin Kong Yee morphs the past, present and future into one infinite image. The artist depicts the idea of time as a surreal ideology as though we are constantly in a state of change yet staticity, an eternal loop. Prompting viewers to question the very meaning of time. As an artist, Chin Kong Yee has evolved and transcended his art from a simp1
Chin Kong Yee’s latest exhibition ‘Dancing with Shadows’ comprises of only five major masterpieces.
Known for his unique fish eye painting composition; Chin Kong Yee morphs the past, present and future into one infinite image. The artist depicts the idea of time as a surreal ideology as though we are constantly in a state of change yet staticity, an eternal loop. Prompting viewers to question the very meaning of time.
As an artist, Chin Kong Yee has evolved and transcended his art from a simple fish eye lens composition (seen in his ‘(eye)-llusions’ series) into pivoted on axis, whereby the work can be rotated 360 degree (seen in his ‘Infinite Canvas – Kuala Lumpur’ and ‘The Flower’ series) and finally into interchangeable art pieces. He has established his own personal painting style ‘Actuality Accorded Painting’ (AAP) that captures the image in the present, as though the viewer were to experience it the moment themselves, rather than observing a static image from the past. The progression of his work runs parallel to his progression as an artist in delivering this visual message of an abiding world.
Working with a style filled with intense dynamism, distortion and unique composition, viewers are inevitably pulled into his works as though they were to enter a different, surreal and timeless reality. Evoking this sense of immortality and invisibility. In ‘Dancing with Shadows’ Chin Kong Yee explores this very notion through his depiction of different European cities such as London and Venice.
Upon his third revisit to Venice, a city that at first left him lost and alone with the foreign scape and shadows of the night. He found himself sitting in Piazza San Marco, where he was taken back 12 years ago. The city was left frozen; the music, the moon and the scene all remained unchanged from a decade earlier. With only his own age and presence acting as an indicator to distinguish the change of time, he found him self in this surreal, timeless and infinite realm.
Inspired by this time-conflicting and surreal experience in Venice, Chin Kong Yee developed his visual narration of time through a series of oil paintings with a strong emphasis on shadows. These paintings are considered interchangeable as they can be organised in multiple different combinations in order to reflect the ever changing and evolving yet static entity of time.
Dancing with Shadows will be showing from 9th August to 2nd September 2018 at Wei-Ling Contemporary.