李慧玲     LEE Hui Ling

LEE Hui Ling's first solo art exhibition

Paintings from 1992 to 2001 

   10^th -- 12th August  2001   J W Marriott Hotel Kuala Lumpur , Malaysia

An Insight

            The sombre, grey clouds were swirling overhead, building up into angry anvils. The seawater increased their lap, lap, lap momentum and the trawlers in the harbour knocked together violently, sending sprays of salty water into the damp air.  Drops of rainwater began to splatter on my cartridge paper layered with washes of colour. Having spent the last two hours on the far reaches of the shore hunched over it, the painting was almost dry and I was ready to pack up. Unfortunately, the pier was too far away for me to make a mad dash.

            Why not let the rain add a bit of liveliness to my painting? Marvelling at my apparent insanity, I stashed my equipment under an umbrella, pull out a fresh paintbrush and waited for the first onslaught of rain. It came gently at first, pat-pat-pat, then slap-slap-slap….I was going to capture the rain.

  Rivulets of pure rainwater ran in peculiar directions on the ridged surface of the painting. Fascinating splotches appeared, the burgundy merging with the cobalt blue, with a hint of lemon yellow. Soon, rainwater dragged the monsoon grey and purple hues of the sky into the earthy tones of the beach, creating a delicate image of a thunderstorm. The trawlers looked weather-beaten now that the water relentless scraped at the colours to reveal blurred, rich textures on the underside. By then, a drenched solitary figure on the beach - clad in shorts and T-shirt, holding a brush, was licking the droplets as they fell from the sky, kissing the air. Overhead, the storm crackled merrily. Capturing rain on paper now gives another new meaning to outdoors drawing. Picture perfect.  

 Unconventional, I would describe myself, with an off-hand touch of paranoia and hereditary eccentricity. Beneath the unflappable and impeccable skin of my undemonstrative, benign persona masks an idiosyncratic gremlin, prone to painting surrealistic Indonesian gargoyles, and writing obnoxious poetry bursting with teenage angst in the middle of the night. For most of the time, when not attending college classes, I sit at a stretched linen canvas, paint brush in hand, and proceed to cast myself off in a visual Never-never-land. Nothing short of a catastrophe can extricate me from this artist’s haven. Well, perhaps chocolate brownies might do the trick.

By the age of two, I was drawing practically all the time, according to my mother, so tenacious was my desire create. I carried coloured pencils, pieces of art paper, chunks of plasticine and remnants of jigsaw puzzles wherever I went. Hungry for space, even the walls of the living room became a gargantuan canvas for me, the elfin child as I teetered on a wooden bench, drawing yet another human figure with a stubby crayon. A healthy obsession with colours that began from the pram, I drew anything that caught my fancy, peacocks doused in garish colours, pirates aboard a Spanish armada, seashells, shoes, guinea pigs, kittens and Lego toys. Unadulterated by conventional art school training, I developed an uncanny eye for proportions and compositions. 

         (Hui Ling & Hui Lian 1996)
  I regularly go on painting excursions, covering the length and breath of Klang and its port, a passion well documented with liberal productions of watercolours, oils and a plethora of pen-and-ink drawings.  Toting bulky easels, wooden stools and a carpenter’s toolbox containing an assortment of paints and brushes, I inevitably draw a small crowd of curious onlookers, particularly children, who finger excitedly at the delicate tubes of watercolour paints and bottles of linseed oil.

Family members, dogs, cats, classmates frequently become the subject of my sketchbook and restless fingers gripping the pencil. I enjoy conjuring images in my mind’s eye and rendering them on paper and other mediums. A bewildering array of subjects ranging from the eclectic self-portraits, the fascinating collection of boats and fishing trawlers in Port Klang, the soft nuances of colour on my pet dogs, the lively riverside coffee shop by the Klang river and so on, are constant sources of fascination for me. Never fixated on a style or genre, my artistic capabilities are constantly evolving, embracing new elements and seeking fresh horizons……  

By Lee Hui Ling         Dec 2000     

 J W Marriott Hotel Kuala Lumpur , Malaysia .2001 / 08 / 10