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By Ooi Kok Chuen.  Some people decide to follow the call of art at an early age; others, later in life, when circumstances allow it. This column takes a closer look at some female artists who have strong connections to Penang, and how art can bring fulfilment and comfort to the artist.
FOR Ng Kim Heoh, 2010 presents new challenges and an uncertain future. After years of teaching and working her way up to the post of senior assistant in a secondary school in Penang, she opted for early retirement on Jan 1.
“It is early days still but it never entered my mind to go full-time,” said Kim (as she is better known), who graduated with a BA of Fine Arts (First Class Honours) from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) in 1999, then obtained her Masters of Science there in 2002.
 It took the sudden death of a friend, a member of the Penang Teachers Art Circle, in an accident in 2006 to jolt her out of her comfort zone.
“It made me realise how fragile life can be and how I had not been making full use of this artistic gift from God,” she adds.
“I became more active, and in the same year took part in the seven-artists show, Same Difference, at Galeri Seni Mutiara, where I sold my first painting.”
Alor Star-born Kim, who is now based in Penang, confided that her output until then was measly as she had to concentrate on teaching. “I was doing only one or two paintings a year.”
It was Galeri Seri Mutiara owner Koay Soo Kau, an established artist himself, who gave Kim her big break – her first solo, in November 2008. It was called My Inspiration. She is now preparing for her second solo, in Kuala Lumpur in October, and has penciled in her third, in Penang next year.
 From works with a socio-economic bent done as course assignments in her student days, Kim has now found her niche – still-life with an emotive slant and mini “dramas” using predominantly pears, emphasising their sculptural shapes, set placements and colour nuances.
“Cat Girl” Lim Ai Woei (born Penang, 1972), who now works at the National Art Gallery (NAG) in Kuala Lumpur, is luckier than most artists.
Unlike many parents who see a career in art as something frivolous, Lim’s mother supported her art dreams unflinchingly, from the time she was in primary school.
 Lim’s potential was obvious even then. She won several art prizes in secondary school, culminating in the First Prize (Open category) in the Teochew Association Art Contest when she was in Lower Six.
“But I stopped taking part in competitions after that. I paint to express myself, my innermost feelings, not to win prizes,” she confides.
A diploma graduate of the Kuala Lumpur College of Art (KLCA, 1997), Lim first made her presence felt at the Pesta Pulau Pinang Young Talents show from 1991 to 1996.
For seven years, she managed a café-restaurant gallery called Coconut House in Malacca and Penang, before joining the NAG in December 2007. There, her most notable achievement was when she co-curated the Chuah Thean Teng: An Appreciation exhibition on Malaysia’s world-renowned batik painting founder.
Lim’s pet theme is her furry, feline friends, which also provide her comfort and companionship. On canvas, she re-presents human traits through the eyes of cats.
“Cats can communicate with me. I like to observe their behaviour, especially when in a brood. They bring out the caring quality and sensitivity in me, evoking the sense of sharing, and opening up other perspectives of life,” she says.
 So there are cats huddled furtively on the inside panel of an open oblong box; cats frolicking in a fish pond; cats being pampered silly; cats cuddling up in melancholy.
Lim is also known for her watercolour paintings of old heritage buildings, especially those in the Armenian Street/Toh Aka Lane cultural precincts and alleyways. Her Window series, for example, shows unsightly telegraph wires strapped to houses, and airconditioning panels hanging on facades like clumsy appendages.
Asked if there is gender discrimination in art, she replied: “Every artist struggles with the same dual problems of financial security and getting recognition. It’s a question of balancing one’s art and career. One can’t have 100% of everything.” How Cheah Ewe Hoon (born 1950), Malaysia’s unofficial Queen of Photo Realism Art, got into art is more prosaic and sobering.
Cheah fell gravely ill under some nebulous spells at the age of 24 while working in factories. She found that she had a talent for art and saw it as a possible way to make a living.
Since she could not stay outdoors for too long, she painted from photographs and steadfastly honed her skills.
 People began to take note of Cheah after she won the Promising Young Artist Award at the Penang Art Gallery’s 17th annual show in 1981. The following year, she won the Dunlop watercolour prize.
Other accolades followed: the Malaysian Watercolour Society Awards in 1984 (Coastal Scene, Penang) and again in 1990 (Bird Park, Penang), and the First Prize as well as a Consolation Prize in the Holiday Inn Shah Alam competition.
In more recent years, Cheah has switched to acrylics, painting on canvas. And for one who cannot travel far or long, her picture perfect output is astonishing. She handles, with aplomb, waterfalls, mountains, the seaside, shady alcoves, wildlife, architecture (such as a huge Khoo Kongsi work), and even Costeau-like submarine fugues.
“I stopped putting my works on exhibition in 2008. Too much hassle. I began depending on the odd collector visiting my home,” said Cheah, whose last solo exhibition was in 2004, at Metro Fine Arts in Kuala Lumpur.
But she uses her talent for good causes. She has painted murals for charity homes, churches and temples for free and said she would do that for Muslim establishments too, if asked.
The three large mural paintings she did for a temple in Bukit Dumbar were an astonishing feat, considering her protracted ill health and regular dizzy spells. Two were of the Pu Xian Phor Sat (15 feet and four feet), the sister of Guan Yin (Avalokitesvara), on a white elephant. The third was an eight-foot-tall piece of Guan Yin.
Penang-born Sylvia Lee Goh is another anomaly in terms of pedigree. She started teaching herself painting in the 1970s. “I needed paintings for my new house and could not afford them,” she said, half in jest.
Her richly textured works of things ornate and Peranakan, magical gardens and women relationships have made her a significant artist in the short time since she emerged in the 1987 NAG Open show. Lee celebrated her status as an artist with a “coming-home” party of sorts with a solo, her first, called From The Heart, at the Penang State Art Gallery in 1998. The spritely Wong Siew Inn (born 1924) has such an astonishing child-like devotion to art that, despite suffering a battery of old-age illnesses, her zest for painting and life has not diminished.
After laying off painting for some time because of her health, Wong suddenly had a spurt of adrenaline – she painted some 30 watercolours in the last three months of 2009. They were mostly her usual flowers concoctions, plus a few works on birds and butterflies. When she was fitter, she had a garden where she acquainted herself with the flowers, birds and insects.
Her husband, Fong Cheek Way, 82, commented: “There is more contrast in her new works yet they exude a sense of harmony.”
Wong took her secondary school art examination the day the Japanese bombed Penang. She then worked as a nurse from 1942 to 1948. In 1960, Peter Harris recommended her for a one-year art course at the Specialist Teachers Training Institute (STTI) in Kuala Lumpur, where she also became a member of Harris’ Wednesday Art Group.
After that, Wong had to stifle her art ambitions for nearly 40 years as she raised three children. But she taught Art, in Kedah, and then at Convent Green Lane, Penang. From 1987 to 1990, she took a non-graduate art course at USM to refresh and upgrade her skills. She has not looked back since her double solos in Penang and KL in 1993.
Like Wong, Oon Suan See (born 1937), also trained at STTI. Other art teachers of her generation included Irene Tho (born 1935; diploma, University of Liverpool), Pearl Wu, Quay Kee Goon, Lim Phaik See and Marie Lim.
 Penang-born Nirmala Dutt Shanmughalingam (1941) stands out for works with environmental barbs and a scathing socio-economic political bent. The Bachelor of Science in Art History and Psychology graduate from Oxford Polytechnic (1975–78) has produced works of stark, graphic pathos on issues ranging from squatters, the Sabra and Chatilla massacre in Beirut, racism, logging (Membalak Jangan Sebarangan Nanti Ditimpa Balak), famine/civil strife (Africa I and II, 1980), and the environment (Statement 1, a joint winner of the Man and his Environment Exhibition, 1973, and Pollution, also 1973).
Despite her frail disposition, Nirmala speaks with virile vehemence and great conviction on whatever causes she espouses on her canvas.
Another towering figure is Dr Yuen Chee Ling (born 1950), who has a MFA from the University of the Philippines (1984). She has produced many outstanding female students through her Conservatory of Fine Arts, which she co-founded in 1987. They include Grace Choong Ai Mei (born 1968), Chiou Ling Chyi (1952), Fong Lee Li, Lim Lay Sim and the late Tulsi Nayar (1928–2004).
Dr Yuen’s works reveal a little of the delicate lines and pastoral hues of Philippines art doyenne Anita Magsaysay Ho (born 1914), combined with stylised Nanyang figure-types and a local tropical palette.
Dr Yuen is best known for Her Presence in Colours international exhibitions, which have become a major vehicle of networking and promotion among women artists. The inaugural show was held in Beijing in 1993, and the 2010 edition, themed Self-Portraits, will be held in August in Portland, Oregon, the United States.
Other venues of the exhibitions, which often had a thematic forum, were Bangkok (1999), Penang (1995, 1998, 2003 and 2005), Sheffield, Britain (2002), Doncaster, Australia (2004), Beijing (2008) and Daegu, South Korea (2006).
Through the exhibitions, Dr Yuen also set up the International Women Artists Council (Inwac) in 1999 and has been its president ever since.
One of the most accomplished artists in Chinese brush painting is Lynn Teoh Phaik Eng (born 1955), who has resettled in Penang after moving to Kuala Lumpur and Johor, where she played the dual roles of artist and art tutor.
Trained at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in Singapore, Teoh has kept active since her first solo in Singapore in 1982.
For some, art runs in the family. USM graduate Doreen Koay Lan Hiang (born 1971) is the daughter of Koay Soo Kau, while Ang Ting Kean, who is adept at Chinese brush renditions of lotus and peonies, is the daughter of Ang Swee Hin (alias Yew Sheng; 1925).
Like their male counterparts, more women artists today are college-trained. Besides those mentioned above, we have ceramist Ooi Lee Beng (born 1960, BA, USM); Rosidah Anang (1956, BA, USM); Tan Ngee Kong (1964, National Taiwan Normal University); Teoh Joo Ngee (1970, Malaysian Institute of Art); Teoh Siew Choo (1958, Kuala Lumpur College of Art); Yew Siew Wah (1966, BA, USM); Linda Chen Yet Lee (1956, Oriental Art Centre); Adelene Cheah Siew Hwa (1970, Sain Academy of Art, Penang) and jewellery designer cum sculptor Cheong Mei Fong (1951, Oriental Art Centre).
Penang is also fortunate to have pioneering women artists in the early days.
Mrs Kathleen Codrington, wife of the Resident Governor of Penang, was active in the 1930s, while the great Georgette Chen (born 1906, Zhejiang; died March 15, 1993, Singapore) taught at the Han Chiang High School from 1951–53 before leaving for Singapore.
The wives of Penang pioneers Kuo Juping (1908–66) and Datuk Tay Hooi Keat (1910–89) – May Fong Xian and Tan Gek Khean, respectively – also took part regularly in art teachers’ exhibitions.
In 1962 and 1963, May Liang organised two major shows on South-East Asian art at her Galeri de Mai in Penang.
Love, family life, friendships, flowers, favourite things and even politics – the themes may vary based on the artist’s own career path, personal circumstances and living environment. Stereotype it may seem, but a woman’s art is often imbued with something more intimate in terms of relationships or expressions, with greater sensitivity and a delicate sense for colour and light.
Ooi Kok Chuen has been writing on the art scene at home and abroad for 28 years. ** Reproduced with permission. This article first appeared in the April 2010 issue of the Penang Economic Monthly. This 11-year old magazine published by the Socio-economic and Environmental Research Institute (SERI) is being overhauled and commercialised. This endeavour is in response to the growing insight among Penangites and Penang lovers that the downward trend in the state's fortunes cannot be succesfully reversed unless they themselves get seriously involved. The goal is to inspire positive action among readers towards attaining a "Penang Renaissance".
 For more information, please visit the Penang Economic Monthly site or contact the Socio-economic and Environmental Research Institute (SERI) at 604-2283306.
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