WONG KEEN

FLESH MATTERS 2.0

@ Art Jakarta 2019

Wong Keen (b. 1942, Singapore) grew up in a Chinese literati environment and studied drawing and painting at an early age. He was an acclaimed teenage artist in the early Singapore art scene and held his first solo exhibition at age 19. In 1961, Wong Keen travelled to America to study at the Art Students League of New York, making him the first Singaporean and among the earliest of Chinese artists to venture into the flourished post-war American art scene — then the most avant-garde art centre in the world.

Having spent over fifty years in the US, Wong Keen registered a plethora of artistic influences in the fast-paced American art scene. His pictorial language is a powerful embodiment of the elegant expressivity of Chinese ink wash aesthetics and Western inventive approach towards form and colour. In 2007, the Singapore Art Museum celebrated Wong Keen’s masterful repertoire with the solo exhibition, Wong Keen: A Singapore Abstract Expressionist. Wong Keen’s work is held in a number of private and public collections, including the National Museum of China, Minnesota State University Art Museum, Albright Knox Art Gallery, New York, Singapore Art Museum, Resorts World Sentosa and the Fullerton Hotel.

Jointly presented by

artcommune gallery and

The Culture Story

Jakarta Convention Center Senayan

Indonesia

30 August – 1 September 2019