Ooi Kok Chuen

is an art-writer and journalist, and the author of MAHSURI: A Legend Reborn (Ooi Peeps Publishing), an adult contemporary fantasy “movel” (a novel conceived as a mock movie) spun from a local legend.

152 posts

A Glorious Age Passes in the World of Comics, Cartoons and Caricatures

7 min read

DEATH, to artists of some repute, is an immortality, the proverbial life-after-death, with the legacy of the largesse of works by the deceased defining the age,...

Tang Hon Yin – In Search of Magical Margins

7 min read

Still Life (30 x 21cm. Gouache on paper, 1959).THE Tang Hon Yin Retrospective is a fitting culmination of the artist’s Space Odyssey of half a centu...

Challenging Times Ahead for Art Fairs in Asia

7 min read

A newspaper clipping on the cancellation of Art Stage Singapore, in the Singapore Straits Times.The abrupt cancellation of Art Stage (AS) Singapore a week...

Securing Democracy, One Art Event at a Time

6 min read

Jumble of the digital-print posters.Posters strung at the MAP Publika boulevard.Poster lauding Mexican feminist artist Frida Kahlo...

Paintings Timelessly Watered and Coloured

7 min read

(Top) First layer. Demonstration painting at the Taman Aman lake. (Bottom) Hey Presto! The finished painting.“He (Ong Kim Seng) is versatile in hi...

Can the YCA Awards Keep Up with the Times?

7 min read

Afiq Faris (b. 1991, Selangor) Saka-Saka.Joy Ng Mei Lok (b. 1996, KL) SeedSo, the next young superstar in the Malaysian art firmament has been named...

Ipoh – A Place to Visit for the Art Enthusiast

6 min read

Lau Chee Wah, ruddy-looking for 82, still takes orders for his traditional chick blinds.THE double-storey shoplots along Lorong Bijeh Timah (Postcode: 300...

Art Expo Malaysia Marches On While Others Stumble

4 min read

It’s a feat that the International Art Expo Malaysia (AEM) is now in its 13th year, though it is increasingly tough to keep up with the fast-changing game...

A Row of Fairs Clearing the Air in the Art World

6 min read

ALL’S FAIR WITH art fairs as a modicum of normalcy returns to the art scene after two years of Covid-19 pandemic cryonics on public life.Dusting the cobwebs fro...

A Wild Amalgam at Art Biennial for the Young

6 min read

FINALLY, painting is dead, at least in the hugely prestigious Bakat Muda Sezaman (BMS, Young Contemporary Artists) 2021/2022 competition for young artists, some...

Malaysian Artists Gaining World Fame…and Maybe Fortune

6 min read

AS INTERNATIONAL BORDERS begin opening up, Malaysian artists are receiving gilt-edged invitations to major international showcases such as the Venice Biennale (...

NFTs: A Flash in the Pan or a Herald of the Future?

6 min read

WHEN BEEPLE’S NFT, Everydays: The First 5,000 Days (2021), sold for US$69.3mil at Christie’s March 2021 auction, it triggered a seismic revolution in the art wo...