Chiew Sien Kuan is a painter and sculptor from Singapore. He graduated with a Diploma in Fine Art from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in 1989. He obtained his undergraduate and master’s degrees from the University of Tasmania, Australia, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Higher Education from NTU-NIE, Singapore, in 2008. Chiew is a dedicated educator who taught at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts for over two decades. Like the previous Singapore pioneer artists who taught at NAFA, he explores and develops a varied body of work, challenging himself to create art that is relevant to the contemporary. His artistic interests include drawing, painting, sculpture, assemblage and installation.

In this series of works, Chiew expresses his observations on the issues of modernity and urbanization and their impacts on people’s well-being. The above artworks are from Painting & Drawing ( ) Machine–Shimmering Lights Series. For the artist, the bracket represents changeability and parenthesis for the words Painting & Drawing. The “( )’ is a space waiting to be filled. Here, he re-examines machines as objects and light in the modern city, introducing traditional aesthetic values into his works through the assemblage of used materials.