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

As Covid Retreats, Malaysian Art Gets Ready to Flourish

6 min read

THE BAKAT MUDA Sezaman ’21 (Young Contemporary Artists, BMS), with its new format of satellite zoning and Art On Site (Seni Di Lokasi) nucleus, should be a game...

Tiger Artists Born in Years of the Tiger

5 min read

Tyger, Tyger, burning bright,In the forests of the night;What immortal hand or eye,Could frame thy fearful symmetry?-       &...

2021: A Year the Bell Tolled and Tolled for the Art World

6 min read

AS COVID-19 spread throughout 2021, the death toll of artists the world over was surprisingly high. Just listing the names of deceased artists would fill up the...

Highlands that Never Stop Inspiring Artists

4 min read

SOME OF THE earliest records of Penang Hill before photography became popular are in the form of 19th century topographical drawings, most of which are now in t...

A Rush of Art Shows as the Flood Gates Open

6 min read

HERE THEY COME! After being completely shut up for so long, or showing only in spurts and shorts, galleries and artists are back with an avalanche of exhibition...

Portraying the Penan, Up Close and Intimate

5 min read

THEY ARE INSIGHTFUL portraits, ethnographic studies in fact of the remaining straggly bands of the nomadic Penan, unknown to the world beyond the forests, river...

Artist and the Big C

6 min read

SO FAR THIS year, the Big C has snatched away two prominent Malaysian artists, coincidentally both Penangborn: self-taught Sylvia Lee Goh, who was based for a l...

Glimpses of Yayoi Kusama’s Art Universe

7 min read

A major survey exhibition of the most expensive living woman artist (since 2014) known for her hypnotic 3P’s – Prolific polka dots, Patterned Pumpki...

Art Fairs Faring Fairly Well

7 min read

Questions continue to linger about the seventh edition of Art Stage Singapore 2017, with the seventh edition – held from January 12-15 (vernissage January...

An Ancient Art Form that Continues to Inspire

8 min read

When Deng Xiaoping visited Malaysia, he was said to have remarked that the spice-enriched Malaysian “Peking Duck” concoction was better than Beijing...

Portraying a Political Icon and Malaysia’s Torturous Tale

7 min read

Theatre Impian “monument” in Bukit Jalil’s Aurora Place shopping mall, a visual art cavalcade of some 100 art gems by 80 of the best contemporary creative minds in the country.

The Art Exhibition of GE14

7 min read

Ng Sek San – The Malaysian Spring initiative. Flower beds of colourful flags "springing" up at "plantable" spaces around the Klang Valley....