

Chua Mia Tee: Directing the Real
An iconic painting depicting a bunch of students gathered around a table has become a prominent fixture at "Siapa Nama Kamu?" the inaugural exhibition of the DBS Singapore Gallery at National Gallery Singapore. It's none other than National Language Class by Chua Mia Tee (蔡名智) (b. 1931), one of the leading realist artists in Singapore's art history. The 1959 painting captures an important stage of Singapore's history, depicting a group of Chinese students learning Malay, the newly designated national language of Singapore then. But if you walk into the gallery now hoping to catch a glimpse of the epochal work, you'll find that it's missing. All that's left is an empty wall with a sign that leads to a new exhibition at Level 4 Gallery of the City Hall Wing. The exhibition in question? Chua Mia Tee: Directing the Real, the artist's first museum exhibition since 1992. With the new exhibition, National Gallery Singapore hopes to offer audiences an insight into Chua's distinct view on realism that goes beyond the mere representation of reality, taking inspiration from the artist’s quote on how “the painter assumes the role of screenwriter, director and actor to freely shape the subject’s image”. Opening to the public on November 26, Chua Mia Tee: Directing the Real showcases his masterfully painted works that depict vivid scenes and portraits of life and people of Singapore during its transformative years from the 1950s to 1980s. There's the Epic Poem of Malaya (1955), where the