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Fah Cheong was born in 1946 in Singapore, a small island in South-East Asia at the tip of the Malay Peninsula. He now lives in Merritt, British Columbia, with his wife, but continues to look back across the Pacific, drawing inspiration from his roots, his family and culture in Singapore. Today, he divides his time between the two countries, calling both of them home. Most of his public commissioned sculptures reside in Singapore. Often focused on themes unique to Singaporean life and history, they can be found in various key locations in the country such as the banks of the Singapore River, on the grounds of the National University of Singapore and in the foyers of government ministry buildings. Rooted though they are in his Singaporean background, there is nevertheless an undeniable universality in the themes of childhood memories, family tradition, hard work, and making it in this world. Continuing a feeling of nostalgia, five boys, frolicking naked and jumping into the Singapore River, are a poignant reminder of how things used to be before flashy restaurants and glossy sidewalks took over this busy port city (First Generation, 2000, bronze). Fah-Cheong brings his childhood memories to bear in a Canadian context with “Romp”, a sculpture featuring three bronze children jumping from rock to rock on the banks of Okanagan Lake in Penticton. “Romp” was commissioned during the 2002 Okanagan-Thompson International Sculpture Symposium (Romp, 2002, bronze).
These sculptures, whether in miniature or life- sized, jog our own memory banks for images of home, family and daily life. They are created from our most intimate moments; seemingly normal, everyday habits or rituals which are often ignored in the bustle of life. The charm of “Dream House”, a mini framework of a house perched atop a wooden pillow, is as undeniable as our own hopes and dreams for a place to call home (Dream House, 1996, cottonwood and pine).
Fah-Cheong is a self-taught artist. His early years were spent teaching art at local schools, most notably the SIA-LaSalle College of Art and Design where he was one of its first art lecturers. However, the drive to explore led him to work on his art full-time, and in the context of the Singapore art scene, he is a pioneer sculptor. Early in his career, he created wood reliefs of Chinatown scenes—rag-tag bits of washing and housewives shopping, framed by the ornate wooden shutters of townhouses, and quickly moved on to free-standing sculptures, first in wood, stone and, finally, bronze. Many of his sculptures carved in the early years used beautiful tropical hardwoods such as teak and jambu, rich in deep tones. These carving skills, when turned to marble, were honed in Carrara and Pietrasanta, Italy, working on the same stone that Michelangelo and other Italian greats made famous. When Fah-Cheong and his family immigrated to British Columbia in 1989,
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