Tan Chong Beng
BORN: 1952
HOMETOWN: SINGAPORE
Tan Chong Beng is a self-taught artist from Singapore. He grew up poor, and struggled in his earlier days, earning small sums of money through the act of “Garang Guni” (buying and selling old goods).
He persevered for more than 50 years without the help of a formal arts education, simply guided by none other than his individual determination and spiritual affinity for painting. His unbridled passion has inspired his multiplicity of layered, multi-faceted abstract paintings using acrylic paint. One of his main influences was the late American abstract expressionist, Jackson Pollock.
An image certainly does speak a thousand words, as his vast, brightly coloured assemblages all share a commonality through his meandering, twisting style of brushwork, and lead us to wonder what complex emotional experiences this artist is trying to convey through this display. Tan Chong Beng is an artist through and through, as being no stranger to the hardships of life, he pours the stresses and sanctions of his life experiences into his lifelong companion; art.