Born in 1942 in Singapore, New York/Singapore-based artist Wong Keen’s art training began under Liu Kang and advanced under Chen Wen Hsi’s mentoring. In 1961 Wong left to study at The Art Students League, New York, and in 1963 received the League’s prestigious Edward G. McDowell Travelling Scholarship to travel and study in Europe. In 1997 Wong travelled to Vietnam where the beauty of the countryside and the people, as well as the daily struggles the population faced, made him feel alive and left him inspired. As an enduring symbol of purity and spirituality in Asian culture, and a recurring subject in Wong’s artistic expression, the lotuses represented here in ‘Painted in Vietnam’ can be read as a visual ode to the people of Vietnam, consisting of multiple layers of colour, meaning and complexity. As the artist says: “The lotus has its own spirit. No two lotuses are the same.”
