A Gentleman Artist

I first met Malaysian artist Keng Seng Choo in June 1992 when he participated in the Darulaman Group Art Exhibition at my gallery. Surprisingly, many of his paintings that he brought for that exhibition were red-dotted indicating that they had already been sold. I was a bit disappointed as it meant that fewer of his paintings were left for sale and therefore the opportunity to obtain commission from sales was diminished. To my amazement, he told me that although his friend had bought them, but since they were painted for the exhibition, his friend would buy them from my gallery and we would get our usual commission. I was very impressed by his ethical behaviour as a lesser artist would have just withdrawn those paintings from the exhibition and saved the commission, a bravo for a humble Malaysian artist.

Apart from his gentlemanly character, his paintings had given me a strong impact. At that time his paintings were more figurative and with a distinctive charm that was easily identifiable with Seng Choo. His paintings exude a sense of innocence, serenity and grace. No wonder all his paintings were sold out on the opening day of that exhibition. Subsequently, he would submit an occasional painting for a group show and in every case, it was promptly snapped up by an eager collector.

Last year, he invited me to visit his studio at Alor Setar. I was astonished to see that he had bought 2 adjoining houses and one of them was used exclusively as his studio-gallery. Impressively his paintings were elegantly and tastefully displayed for maximum visual impact. All the paintings spoke the universal language - love, peace, and harmony.

In recent years, though he has moved on to work more in abstraction, but are equally successful. In my opinion, a good artist is one who strived continuously to improve his art and explore his artistic creativity to the fullest by the process of self-actualization and experimentation. Artists who vegetate in a visual rut prefers to paint commercially viable paintings that sell well before and continue to churn out suck paintings year in and year out. Obviously, Seng Choo is not one of them. In this way, he paints for himself and not for the art-market. If his collectors would like his new works, good for them! But, if not, he will not lose to sleep over it.

His abstract works are harmoniously composed - exude warmth and a sense of delight. His colour combination is exquisite which a nice sense of balance between warm and cool colours. Some paintings have outlines of pigeons to help the collectors who are less familiar to abstract art, so they can appreciate the paintings better. I look forward to follow his artistic career with keen interest.

— by Dr. Tan Chee Khuan, in Praise of Pigeons catalogue