Oil paint has been a staple of Western art since the Renaissance (1300-1600). Colour pigments are mixed with oil to create a strong, thick, and versatile paint that can be layered to create detailed works with depth. Traditionally, oil is used on canvas because its thick fabric can withstand multiple layers of paint. Comparatively, rice paper is a much thinner base. Created in China during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) as a more evolved paper meant specifically for writing and painting, rice paper also known as ‘the king of all paper’ by Chinese literati, is just as popular a staple as oil paint is in the realm of Chinese art. It is soft and fine, yet has a high tensile strength. This means that it can be stretched a lot more without ripping compared to other types of paper. Most importantly for the artist Low Hai Hong, it was accessible.&nbsp;Canvas was expensive. It was financially impractical to buy an entire canvas just for practice sketches that would never see the light of day. So, as artists often do, Low practiced on paper, any paper he could find. It was a straightforward act guided by practicality. Through this, whether it was by a great coincidence of fate, or an underlying subconscious series of decisions, Low discovered his favourite combination that would later become his visual signature: oil on rice paper. Compared to other types of paper, rice paper ripped a lot more easily under the weight of the paint because of how fine it was. Layering pigments was difficult, meaning that he could not paint in the way of Western convention like the Old Masters did. Too many layers of paint would tear the thin paper and when it reached this point, the paintings had to be discarded and restarted from scratch. This process was arduous as it demanded skill and undivided focus. To Low however, it was a welcomed challenge. It combined his love for oil painting with his love for his Chinese culture.&nbsp;

A Singapore Artist in Paris

Hailing from Shantou, China, but born in Sumatra, Indonesia, in 1941 the geography of Low Hai Hong’s life is complex. Fleeing the destruction of the second world war, Low’s family left Shantou and moved to Sumatra where he was later born. However, violence continued to follow them. In 1945 opportunists in Indonesia, fighting for independence from Dutch colonial rule, incited violence against Chinese migrants within the country. The family briefly moved back to Shantou before finally migrating to Singapore in 1949 where he attended an English school, and later the Nanyang Academy of Fine Art (NAFA) to study Western painting. Despite the years and oceans that kept him away from his ancestry in Shantou, Low remained rooted in his Chinese culture and heritage. It was part of his being. And so, he poured pieces of it into his art.Oil behaved differently on rice paper than it did on canvas. Because the paints could not be layered over each other and continuously edited on rice paper like on canvas, he used oil according to the methods of Chinese painting. His brush strokes had to be strong and deliberate as per the conventions of Chinese painting. Each mark painted with intention and feeling. Consequently, abiding by the philosophy of Chinese art, his works were not entirely realistic.&nbsp;

Boats by the Canal St Martin

Chinese painting did not prioritise realism or replicating the exact appearance of its subject, rather, it conveyed the subject’s spirit. These artworks captured the essence of moments, emotions of the artist or the scenes, and the resonance of its spirit. Because of this semi-abstraction from reality, Chinese painting also appears more sketch-like, a vast difference from Western art whereby such works would be seen as “incomplete”. While it can be argued that Impressionism and its subsequent movements in the Western art world are like this as well, their works that are based in reality are still more detailed and true to life compared to Chinese painting, and there is less of an emphasis on feeling. Although Low’s works may appear to be inspired by Western art movements like Impressionism because of his use of oil, and the increasing popularity of impressionistic works in the Western art world, much of his inspiration for this series of works was in fact, drawn from Chinese painting traditions.He was however, not only influenced by Chinese culture. For this series of works, Low wanted to combine influences from both the East and West, creating something true to himself that reflected his life’s journey. Because of the fineness of rice paper, the works are painted thinly like in traditional Chinese painting. However, the use of oil meant that they were also layered to create depth, albeit much more lightly, like in Western art. His artworks embody a synthesis of East and West. It is a deeply meaningful method brimming with sentimentality of our history, traditions, culture, and soul.

Autumn in the Park

In 1973, cultural theorist Stuart Hall (1932-2014) released a paper titled ‘Encoding and decoding in television discourse’ which argues how we understand things is rooted in our culture. It is the tangible things, our food, language, art, and music. And the intangible things, like our values and beliefs. Culture is interwoven in the fabric of our existence, and no matter how much we think we exist differently and entirely independent of it as unique individuals opposing the status quo, it is irrevocably core to our sense of self. We are the people we are because of our cultural experiences. It is the same reason why Europeans tend to have a greater appreciation for art, why Asian societies are more collectivistic, and why Americans drive so much more compared to the rest of the world. Culture is comprised of our shared beliefs and values: how we should behave, what is important, what is right or wrong. But it is also so much more. It shapes us as individuals, and in turn, how we make sense of the world around us through our social identities. How we understand is thus built off our social and cultural contexts.&nbsp;As such, a strong artwork must have roots in its cultural and social sphere. It cannot be a baseless mirror of popular pieces that have come before. To do this would be to create a beautiful husk without a heart. A meaningful piece of art has the complex and vulnerable task of bearing a part of the artist’s soul to the viewer in a way that can be easily understood. This is also the reason why to really appreciate an artwork, you must understand the social and cultural context it was created in. Stuart Hall explains this using his model of ‘encoding/decoding’. The meaning behind a piece of media, in this case an artwork, is encoded into it by the creator. The viewer however, may decode its meaning differently because the way they make sense of the world varies from the artist. While some may accept what the artist means, others may completely reject it and form their own interpretation. So, the more you know about an artist themselves, the easier it is to understand the true meaning behind their creations. This is particularly paramount in the current period of contemporary art (works made after 1970 by living artists).&nbsp;

Evening Dust

We live in an era where most artworks are conceptual and its value lies more in its philosophy than its technical prowess. In a time where knowledge is easily acquirable and one does not need to attend the Royal Art Academy with the children of lords and ladies to learn how to draw, the essence of a piece of art lies in its meaning. Beauty alone is not enough.&nbsp;A good artwork needs to be able to stand its ground, speaking for itself aesthetically and philosophically. It is thus paramount that an artwork is rooted in its culture, and that these roots are significant enough that its meaning can be easily understood by the viewer.&nbsp; The value of Impressionist works comes from the Parisian disputes with the salons, Russian Constructivism derives its importance from its roots in the Russian revolution, and Singapore’s Nanyang style is important because it reflects the East/West blend of cultures in the country. Good art says something about where it was made. It must be more than a hollow frivolous existence. It cannot be created or understood in a cultural vacuum, its message must be rooted in its socio-historical context in a way that can be understood by all. Artist Low Hai Hong believed exactly this: an artist must not stray from their roots and only by staying grounded can they create truly meaningful works of art. This is what separates the artisan and the craftsman, high art from the simulacra.&nbsp;As per the demands of the contemporary art world, Low Hai Hong’s synthesis of oil on rice paper itself is an insight into the artist’s own soul. When you look at one of his paintings, his reflection stares back. You can see the years he spent training in Western oil painting at NAFA, his desire to stay rooted in his Chinese heritage in spite of his years of English education and continuously migrating within Southeast Asia, and how much he valued culture and tradition. He sought to find a balance between nature and nurture, the Chinese culture he was born into and the Western school of painting he was taught. How could he combine the oil medium he knew and loved with Chinese painting?&nbsp;

It's a Beautiful Day in Paris

Using oil on rice paper was the perfect expression of his artistic selfhood. It blended the vivacious colours of Western oil with the subtlety of Chinese ink. These works shine vibrantly, but still have a classical refinement to them. They balance the explosive luminous colour of Western oil with the simplicity of Chinese ink. Most importantly, it reflected his own Eastern and Western cultural influences and allowed his works to truly mean something. Although he trained in Western methods of painting Low believed that naively mimicking Western art’s trends and beauty standards simply because that was what he was taught was a hollow pursuit. If an artist abandons their cultural heritage and blindly pursues the Western avant-garde in search of fame and recognition, who will understand their works? What will give their art consequence?Historically, the Western world has set the bar and been idealised as the pinnacle that all must emulate to succeed both within and beyond the art world. The West sat at the dominant center of the world, disseminating culture, knowledge, and influence to other regions littered around as part of the cultural periphery. This included both China and Southeast Asia. Their reach was limited, and their outflow stagnant. All they could do was accept what was poured out of the center, and adopt the same ideology. Low was a firm opposer of this. He believed that Western art should not be the only leading example. Chinese techniques and ideas were just as beautiful and important, and he sought to position them at the forefront of not only his own works but the art world. He employed these techniques in his art: deliberate brush strokes, capturing the essence of a moment instead of replicating reality, and sketch-like brush strokes were all ideals of Chinese art that embedded his work with emotion. To him, Western art focused too much on realism. Even Impressionist works, which were already semi-abstracted, were replications of reality through a stylised lens.&nbsp;

Montmartre at Dusk

Chinese art was different. It was as if the brush itself was submerged in emotion before it touched the paper. They evoked emotion, not factual recognition. For example ‘San Shui’ paintings, directly translated to mountain-water paintings, were landscape works containing mountains or bodies of water that did not aim to replicate what was physically there. Instead, these works encapsulated what the artist thought about nature. It parallels the Romantic idea of ‘the sublime’ in Western art, an overwhelming feeling of awe or fear at the realisation of the all-encompassing forces of nature. In Chinese art this idea is used in more than just landscapes but to depict people, stories, animals and so forth. That is why the perspective, colours, and sizes of subjects in these paintings are never exact. It is not scientific, but spiritual and evocative. This was exactly what Low wanted to elicit in his own works. Each one painted with emotion, emphasising different elements to make the viewer not only think, but feel.&nbsp;Most of Low’s signature oil on rice paper works were created during his stint in Paris. Having practiced and perfected the combination to the best of his ability beforehand, Low created a series of oil on rice paper works both in the studio and plein air on the Parisian streets. Despite the years of experience he had painting with oil, controlling the medium on the fragile paper proved a difficult task. But there was no method more apt for him to express himself. The rice paper rooted his paintings in Chinese culture despite his use of oil in the same way he rooted himself in his heritage. In a world where Western art set the standard, drawing inspiration from Chinese art while using a Western medium set Low apart in terms of both aptitude and philosophy.

At the Café

The unique combination of materials made the paintings literally shine in a different way. The pigments of the paint are absorbed differently on rice paper compared to canvas, giving them a bright yet refined look. The colours appear more three-dimensional compared to when they lay on canvas, breathing life into the paintings. The sketch-like style inspired by Chinese ink gives the scenes an enhanced emotional depth that we do not usually see in landscapes from Western artists. When looking at these paintings you feel what the artist felt. You see through his eyes as he walks the Parisian streets, and it makes you feel as if you knew him. Perhaps somewhere, someplace, in a different time. The artwork shows us everything: his life is there as plainly as the ripples in the water and the clouds in the sky. Expressing Chinese virtues with Western methods, Low Hai Hong has made something truly meaningful. Each painting is a good piece of art that calls out to the soul and resonates with the spirit no matter the differences in culture. It brings us to a standstill between quiet understanding and emotional invigoration.&nbsp;