There is an intriguing interiority and an exciting exteriority to the recent paintings of Yeo Eng Hin. Intimations of French Impressionism and nuances of an emotional, and spiritual, Expressionism grace the acrylic and oil (mixed media) canvases of this gentle man painter. Yeo captures the essences of his subject well, and transports us, his viewers, into a land both venerable and seemingly superbly supernal - that of Cambodia’s ancient Angkor.
The imposingly graceful Angkor, magnificent city of hewn stone temples, was created by skilled craftsmen during Khmer (Cambodian) Empires from the 9th to the 15th centuries. It was revisited by French naturalist and explorer M.Henri Mouhot in 1860, and noted in his travel journals. Angkor is an imposing city comprising of Hindu and Buddhist temples which cover 400 glorious square kilometers, outside Siem Reap, Cambodia. The intrepid painter Yeo has sojourned in Angkor numerous times to internalise, and reveal, the gentleness, tranquility and deep seated spirituality of that wondrous city. Angkor has the sagacious reputation of turning writers into poets, adventurers into acolytes and painters into masters, and such is the case with Yeo Eng Hin.
So seldom does the rendering of a subject fuse so perfectly with the psyche of the subject itself. It is as if Malaysian painter Yeo has absorbed some of the peaceful tranquility from that great Khmer city and rendered it, and his reflections upon it, for we exhibition visitors to marvel at. And marvel we do.
Nanyang (Singapore) and Paris trained Yeo has evidently come of age in his astute Angkor paintings. Skillfully blending an ethereal, impressionistic, haziness, acute architectural perspective with splash painted Expressionistic texturing, Yeo brings all the grace and otherworldliness of ancient city of Angkor alive. Drifting cantaloupe coloured monks stray like benign specters amidst aged and ancient stone. We onlookers become uncertain if these monks are unsubstantial echoes, ghosts in time, or present day samaner (novice monks), wandering in silent magnificence. As we gaze, we can feel the immense solidity of weathered stone cubes, hand carved, crafted to form pillars, now beset with all colours of aged lichen. Yeo’s painterly skill reveals the grace of balletic Apsaras and scalloped Buddhas; their hands pressing palm against palm in the sampeah - a welcoming salute to we who view.
These Angkor paintings are no mere capriccio, but a Turneresque dream of Eastern enlightenment and sublime enchantment. We witness and wonder, as Yeo skillfully blends cool and warm colouration to enhance our experience of the grandeur, and humbleness of his noble subject. As we stand before these paintings we become gently lulled, as if in a smoky miasma, drawn into a peaceful serenity greatly uncommon in the hustle and bustle of Malaysian modernity.
With an artist’s vision more acute than digital photography, Yeo Eng Hin, as visionary painter, presents us with both impressions and with expressionistic feelings. Feelings are invoked by the skill of the adept painter, his masterful layering, sleek stroke-making, poignant paint splashing. Light and dark are woven,‘manipulated’, to give birth to the illusion of depth and the depth to illusion. Bright, dark or sun-rising skies bring warmth or cool to our perceptions of the painter’s Angkor. Impressions are rendered in fleeting glimpses of mid-ground and background, seemingly inconsequential trees, and brisk bushes. Our vision becomes constantly guided. Yeo is our painter tour guide. He leads us into his perspectives, as we become unhurriedly herded by his skillful brushwork. In the land Yeo has created, ethereal monks and mysterious gateways arouse our curiosity. They become revealed by Yeo’s thaumaturgic, painterly, enchantment and suddenly appear to delight and astound.
If there were to be criticism of these works, it would of scale. I should delight in much larger works, works to truly get lost in - like some aging Alice in a dream that is a Cambodian wonderland.
