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.At first glance ‘After Rain Sunflowers’ and ‘August Sunflowers’ may appear to have the qualities of the typical Renaissance botanical drawings, but on closer examination they have none of the technical characteristics. Instead, the swerving confident and random strokes seem to speak its own language, expressing the calligraphic quality of Ong’s personal artistic 'script'. Echoing the immediacy and brushwork of Chinese landscape painting, the viewer begins to follow the charcoal's movement as if it were a dynamic, flowing entity, and in so doing, makes the process an integral part of the drawing's overall aesthetic. Therein lies its uniqueness.
