Choong Kam Kow’s “Projection,” and his other painting in the collection “Advancing and Receding,” are part of Choong Kam Kow’s Shaped Canvas series. Both paintings have squares within squares in a logical pattern of bright colour that are conjoined by two darker-coloured trapezoid shapes which mirror each other. This gives the paintings the appearance of protruding from the wall though they are two-dimensional. Choong has remarked that “my shaped canvasses are designed to emphasise the primary forms and the implied spaces they occupy. The combination of elementary geometric shapes and vibrating colours repeated in every canvas is an attempt to clarify and optically enhance the basic planes which exist within the pre-determined structure.” His precise abstract paintings, which were planned with the use of graphing paper, formed a stark contrast to Malaysian artists’ earlier engagement with abstraction which was more gestural and emotive.