Born in Singapore in 1964, Jimmy Ong won the 1980 UOB Painting of the Year Competition (Youth 2nd Prize), and during the mid-1980s to early-1990s received scholarships to study in the USA and in Italy. Accomplished in sculpture and painting, Ong’s trademark are his expressive charcoal drawings.Ong’s sculpture ‘Monument to Bumboat’ was created after he returned from his first formal art training in the USA and, as with his drawing ‘Old Man Cigarette’ (created prior to leaving for further studies in 1989), was perhaps a reaction to ‘home’ – raised in the oldest section of Singapore’s Chinatown, bumboats being (un-) loaded along the river would have been a common sight during his childhood. In this rare abstract example of Ong’s work, the bumboat is reduced to its most elemental yet still recognisable form using assembled slabs of ciment fondu.
