Kow Leong Kiang

published Nov 13, 2007

Malaysian painter Kow Leong Kiang holds a long-awaited solo exhibition of new works this November at Valentine Willie Fine Art.

Since winning the Grand Prize at the Philip Morris ASEAN Art Awards (1998) with his controversial painting, "Mr. Foreign Speculator, Stop Damaging Our Country", the artist has gone on to create some of the most memorable images of rural Malaysia.

He is best known for his masterful portraits of East Coast beauty, capturing its pathos and nostalgia.

His new series of paintings mark a bold change in subject matter, and comprises a series of portraits of artists and writers he met during his residency at Vermont in 2004 - men and women from all over the world.

He takes on the challenge of addressing these cosmopolitan subjects, their friendship and their foreign-ness, with stunning new painterly approaches.