ABOUT | 关于林秀香

LIM SEW YONG started learning to paint when she was in secondary school, enrolling in a part-time course at the Nanyang Academy of Arts before reading a degree in history at the former Nanyang University in the early 1970s. The pioneer generation artist likes to paint using different materials, including the types of paper She was known for her carps painted in a mixed media of paints on Japanese gold leaf paper in the 1980s. She likes painting carps because they are colourful, intelligent and are symbols of prosperity and good luck. She moves to painting Chinese opera figures next. In just a few deft strokes with her brush of colourful acrylic paints, poster and watercolours or even Chinese ink, she creates expressive characters of scholars and maidens, heroes and villains from well-known Chinese operas which incorporate history, fairy-tales and legends to show all aspects of human behaviour and emotions such as love and hatred, loyalty, treachery, kindness and wickedness. She hopes to promote and preserve the traditional Chinese performing art form through her paintings. She has also tried her hands at batik painting with considerable success before going on to paint human figures, kampong scenes and a series of animals from the Chinese zodiac for corporate calendars. To understand the animals better before painting them, she even kept rabbits, squirrels and hamsters as pets. Her painting of two Samsui women eating durians is among her favourites as it shows the happiness on the women's faces after a hard day's work under the Sun.
林秀香女士在中学时开始学习绘画,在南洋艺术学院修读兼职课程,1970年代初期在南洋大学读历史学位。这位新加坡建国一代艺术家喜欢使用不同的材料和纸张进行绘画。她在1980年代以日本金箔纸上的涂料混合介质涂上了她的鲤鱼。她喜欢画鲤鱼,因为它们色彩鲜艳,聪明,是繁荣和好运的象征。接下来,她开始画中国戏曲人物。她用彩色丙烯颜料,海报和水彩画甚至是中国水墨,只用几个巧妙的笔触,创造出来自中国着名歌剧的学者和少女,英雄和恶棍的表现形象,其中包括历史,童话和传说。展示人类行为和情感,如爱与恨,忠诚,背叛,善良和邪恶。她希望通过她的画作来宣传和保存中国传统表演艺术形式。她还在蜡染画上试过手,取得了相当大的成功,然后在中国十二生肖的公司日历上画人物,甘榜场景和一系列动物。为了更好地了解这些动物,她甚至饲养了兔子,松鼠和仓鼠作宠物。她画的两名三水女工分享吃榴莲,是她的最爱,因为它展示了在太阳下辛苦工作一天后女性脸上的快乐。