In the last decade, he has held 7 impressive solo exhibitions of new works. There is no doubt that he loves to paint. From the time of his first ever solo until now, he has culled an engagement of lyrical abstraction, a style that allows his audience to take a walk in his paintings, moving through lines and forms, into fields of colours, to surrender to light and space, and move into an imagined world filled with an array of emotional expressions. This imitable style in painting is conjured by one of the finest abstract painters today: Cheong Laitong.
At the last launch of his solo exhibition, visitors were astounded by the depth and the energetic breadth of the paintings. He presented a collection aptly titled “Our Beautiful Earth” which captured the scale of nature in all its opulence and simplicity. These works were his message, concern and tribute to nature.
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A particular work of elegant proportions in that exhibition was a black on white painting. The composition was striking in his use of tone, moving from dark to light, shapes and perspective. The result was the overlapping of the two complimentary forms, colour and movement to carve graceful silvery shadows to the illusionary effect of dance- like rhythms and shapes.
The 2011 series are a collection of 23 works. For me, there is a greater sense of movement in each of these new works, and the colours more vibrant. The lines move in all manner of ways and directions, like a sensory nervous system, transporting impulses in and out from his choice of colours. A world begins to open up as his painting strikes a chord and much like the dancing lines, and the hues of colours set free our imagination to a higher dimension.
At the age of 79, Cheong Laitong continues to paint directly onto canvas; rarely does he make a sketch prior to painting. Nature acts as the primary force in his works. He takes inspiration from it and paints in an intuitive manner. His picture plane is made up of primary colours, in dominant bands of blue, red and yellow. The colours move and melt into each other, creating a secondary movement to the sinews of his lines.
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