Wong Perng Fey’s recent work stems from his stay in Beijing, China where he has been residing and working. These paintings are influenced by the artist’s foray into a new and foreign city, one that is at the cusp of greatness but is also informed by its thousand-year history and heritage. Likewise, Perng Fey’s work parallels this, but on more intimate, personal scale.
The hustle and bustle of urban city life is can be extremely stimulating, yet at the same time, a city that is always active can leave one exhausted and drained. Wong Perng Fey’s landscapes reimagine an idyllic, almost pastoral scene, one that hearkens back to simpler times. It is almost as though the artist is resisting the allure and the bright lights of the big city, and instead seeks to find solace and comfort in the countryside.
Wong Perng Fey’s landscapes are transitional ones. While at first sight, they depict scenes of tranquility and gentleness, they are really in-between scenes. The fleetingness of autumn where the leaves turn golden brown overnight and then the trees become bare, that kaleidoscope of colours at dawn and dusk that disappear in the blink of an eye, the ramshackle huts of yesteryear that might be torn down today. Perng Fey’s paintings capture the essence of this beautiful period. In our rush to do more, see more, feel more, we inevitably overlook and forget that there are these little vignettes that are worth remembering and appreciating. Perhaps the artist believes that city life has hardened us and made us jaded to such moments.
In this day and age, where science and technology is revered as the be all and end all of modern life, we are neglecting the quiet, sensitive artist’s soul. The depth of emotion and feeling that is wrought in Perng Fey’s work is testament to his keen response towards the world around him, and his reaction to an over-stimulated generation of people who need to be told what to see, what to hear and what to feel. This is akin to the difference between prose and poetry, between telling and inferring. Perng Fey’s work requires his audience to pause, and infer, and not just look and walk away. While they are paintings, the experience is not merely a visual one, but also a sensuous one.
The calligraphic swirls of Perng Fey’s brush bring movement and dynamisms to his paintings. Their boldness and starkness contrast with the surreal quality of his backdrops. Yet together they feel very natural and organic, a symbiotic relationship even.
Isolation and loneliness are themes that are integral in Wong Perng Fey’s work. His work depicts a sense of weariness and resigned sadness, which only serve to reinforce the overwhelming feeling of isolation and loneliness. Yet, Perng Fey is also seeing this through the eyes of an artist looking into a foreign world, looking at people who are sad and alone. He stands apart from this. He himself is an outsider, not part of this disconnected and disenfranchised group. This loneliness somehow becomes intensified, yet bold, as though the artist is drawing strength and solace from these works.
Perng Fey tries to capture and make permanent the fleeting nature of change, and of transitions. He is interested in exploring the nature and characteristic of this instead of pursuing a more concrete subject matter. If we parallel this to his exploration of modern life, it is apparent that Perng Fey is focusing on the fringe characters, the marginalised figures in society. These people might never be the stars in this large drama of life, but they are the leads in their own personal “dramas”, regardless of wealth and social status. Is it not the role of the artist/poet to embrace the Everyman, and not just the leading players?
