Born in 1928 in Malaysia, painter and sculptor Wee Kong Chai settled in Singapore in 1952. A graduate of the Singapore Academy of Arts (1957-60), Wee left for Paris in 1964 to study at the École Nationale Supérieure Des Beaux-Arts, returning to Singapore only five years later. Wee’s solo exhibition in 1970 mysteriously marked the end of a decade of painting and the beginning of his dedication to sculpture exclusively carved from wood. The sculptures in the collection, all depicting his favourite subject matter, the human figure in various guises, represent a career of carving spanning nearly twenty years. In their simplicity, these wooden sculptures show the sculptor's evolving mastery in his handling of the medium and its three-dimensionality. Wee's comprehension of fundamental sculptural values and properties, such as spatiality and form, has produced a group of sensitively rendered and somewhat nostalgically naive figurative sculptures.
