Valentine Willie Fine Art Kuala Lumpur presents: Painted Words and Written Paintings: For the Refined and For the Masses, an exhibition by Liew Kwai Fei. Liew Kwai Fei showcases his new and controversial works, marking a departure from his well-received solo exhibition on Abstraction in 2010. Deeply affected by the postcolonial Malaysian experience and the segregation of cultures within the national narrative, Liew makes his stance as a contemporary Malaysian Chinese painter by opting for a figurative, contextual, extravagant and intimate approach as a riposte to the frustrations and political turmoil that Malaysians have been enduring for the last few decades. 

Discarding the often used strategy of photographs as a source of reference, Liew has chosen to rely on his memory and imagination, nurtured mainly by vernacular imageries found in Chinese temples, Hong Kong films and Japanese comics, as well as his passion for language -- especially in Chinese classical poetry and the slangs and puns created by Malaysians -- as the basis of this work. Featuring improvisations of bold colours and strokes, Liew portrays contemporary life as a constant struggle and negotiation between the individual, their origins and social realities.