KVT’s December Diary …28th… Exchanging Ideas @ 29 Hang Bai

Artists from 3 countries-a brief survey

The Exhibition House @ 29 Hang Bai has had a bit of a face lift and is now one of the best little gallery spaces in the city… just a pity it isn’t utilized more often. It’s the sort of space that a lot of commercial gallery owners would probably pay a lot of baksheesh to rent

The mostly figurative exhibition up and running in the space offers paintings by artists from Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. Most of the work has been produced recently with couple of artists chucking in stuff from 2012. It celebrates the ASEAN Day, Dec 31st

My waltz around the 4 gallery spaces had me choosing as my favorites:

A series of 4 appealing, impressionistic works on canvas and paper by Malaysian Chua Cheng Koon. The summery works are called CHASING THE WAVES and represent a salt laden, summer, family holiday at the beach in just about any country.

Local artist, Nguyen Thanh Son offered some delightful small drawings on truc chi paper

These bounced rather nicely off the series of watercolors that played with tropical light, by Yong Look Lam

The above were a quiet relief after the thickly spread oils by Thai artist Lampu Kansanoh. The series called DON’T LEAVE ME ALONE is ambivalent and, to me, unsettling.

Apart from the swirly beachside series, the most popular canvasses may be the café portraits of an elderly man by Malaysian Chow Chin Chuan

While the most digressing and controversial would certainly be the red rose strewn body landscapes (artist misplaced!). Be interesting to know the artist’s gender