Modern Ink Painting and Hybrid Identity: Nanyang Pioneer Artists in Postcolonial Southeast Asia

This study examines how three Nanyang pioneer artists, Chen Chong Swee, Chen Wen Hsi, and Cheong Soo Pieng, negotiated cultural identity through the practice of their modern ink painting. This paper argues that the artistic practice of these three artists could be read as embodying a sustained dialogue between inherited Chinese ink traditions and the modernist expressions of Southeast Asia. Drawing on Stuart Hall’s interpretation of diaspora and identity, together with Homi Bhabha’s concepts of hybridity and the “Third Space,” the paper integrates a formal visual analysis with historical interpretation in examining selected works by these artists. This paper argues that these artists have redefined modern ink painting as a medium of cultural translation and transformation of the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia.