Born in Fuzhou, China, Yeh Chi Wei (1915-1981) is included among a group referred to as Singapore’s “first generation artists”. Graduating from Shanghai’s Xinhua Academy of Fine Arts in 1936, Yeh worked as an art teacher throughout Malaya and Singapore until 1964, while an active member of various art groups. He was especially noted in having started a series of painting trips since 1960 to various Southeast Asian and Asian countries under the Ten Men Group, as well as the Ten Men Art Exhibitions after such trips.Yeh organised the third painting trip for the Ten Men Art Group – an informal group of artists who travelled and collectively exhibited together – to Thailand and Cambodia in 1963. In his two paintings ‘Angkor Wat’ and ‘Bust of Angkor Sc.’, presumably inspired by the same visit, Yeh has painted his majestic subjects in very different ways: In ‘Angkor Wat’ the landscape comprises blocks of expressionistic brushwork and rich earthy colours rendered in thick impasto. In contrast, ‘Bust of Angkor Sc.’ resembles an icon from antiquity, executed no less vigorously but evoking mystery and purity.
