Family Portrait - Georgette Chen

Georgette Chen - Still Life With Big Durian -humz

                                            "Still Life With Big Durian"-1965

This painting depicts a representation of Asian fruits. It is done by using oil on canvas, which makes the painting look realistic, textured and have the slight "popping" effect. The focal point of the would be durian, evident through the use of contrasting colours and heavy brush strokes to highlight the texture of an actual durian and how it creates a contrast by being painted against a pale yellow wall. It is evident that just like many other artworks done by the same artist, it has a "Chinese" style/element to it as seen from the use of heavy brushstrokes and the choice of fruits( mostly Asian fruits ), and colours ( Oriental red ). Just like many of Georgette Chen's artworks, i think that its purpose would be to display/represent common things that would bring joy to the common folk during that time. Also, compared to recent artworks done by recent artists, this particular painting gives a very nostalgic feel to it.

Liu Kang - Lanterns Galore -humz

                                   "Liu Kang - "Lanterns Galore"-1971
This painting depicts a scene of a 7 membered family gazing at lanterns together. This painting was done using oil and canvas. The artist painted the people and lanterns using bright colours, in contrast to the black background. It is evident that he wanted to items painted to be eye-captivating, thus he painted the background black and outlined the dark parts with white paint. I think that the artist wanted to paint using very vibrant colours to set off a very happy feeling to the artwork, which also represents the joy that common folk would have during the lantern festival, it also depicts a scene which would be common to be seen during a lantern festival. The principle of design used is balance and contrast. In the painting, as seen from top to bottom and from side to side, everything was painted in such a way that there would be no dominant item, and that contrast can be clearly seen through the artist's use of colors.

Georgette Chen : Moon Festival Table -humz

This painting depicts a table filled with moon cakes and pastries, and also a few lanterns hung from the ceiling. The artist, Georgette Chen used oil on canvas for this painting, which resulted in it being very textured. The artist has painted the festive goods in colours such as red, white and green, against a pale yellow background. The representation of this piece is very direct and the artist allows the viewers to easily be able to relate to the overall mood of the painting by using very bright and festive colours. This piece of art was done between the years of 1965 - 1968, which during that time, the majority who were living in Singapore were Chinese. Thus, the purpose of this painting would have probably been to represent the simple joy - common celebrations and festive goods enjoyed by the common folk.