Facing Changes

Something happened. During the Nineties, winds of changes blew over the state. Hills and lagoons disappeared. Beautiful vistas vanished. “These havens of peace we now miss and have made to drift away…” wrote Terengganu poet Marzuki Ali. Ancient palaces and timber houses - including Fee Ming’s audio – had to be demolished. A bridge brought cars to the island of Duyung. Asbestos roofing and cement walls replaced Singhora tiles and filigree timber. Padi fields had to make way for real estates. “Darul-Iman changing her face as if she felt it was a duty,” wrote Marzuki in another poem.

Adam was built upstream on the Terengganu River creating a lake that became a watery grave for thousand of creatures. Back from an expedition to save the forest from further extension of the lake, Fee Ming painted the top of the former giant trees, their branches emerging from the water in a last plea. Tigers and elephants, having lost their habitat sought to enter the orchards. In the sea, marine life was threatened. Fee Ming sailed to islands offshore and learned to dive to see for himself the endangered species, the corals and the green turtles.

Mostly, he went away for months on end - traveling around South East Asia and further away, exploring-camera and sketchbook in hand. On the Mekong, he saw men and women who could have been relatives of the people of Terengganu of the past, living in picturesque poverty. It was in Bali, where he wan an invited resident artist, that he remained for the longest time. There he found nature, man and art living in harmony.

Yet, Fee Ming never left Terengganu, where he would return to paint, bringing home his harvest of photographs, sketches, and samples of craftsmanship. He also prepared for the publishing of his first book “The World of Chang Fee Ming”. The book manifested the fact that Fee Ming’s “world” truly existed. That, together with a continued progress in his career, was perhaps what encouraged Fee Ming to continue to paint Terengganu. An artist, capturing the emotion of passing scenes can help preserve the spiritual heritage hidden behind the apparences. He may have some influence on the evolution of things in the future.

In Terengganu, many inhabitants still live in the fold of their traditions. Summoning all the resources of his skills, Fee Ming set to record the rites and the routines of villagers from the cradle to the grave. The result is a gallery of portraits, bursting with colours of heightened intensity, different compositions and perspectives, each with its own range of lighting, all blessed with the gift of life. In What About Me? , 1997 a little girl peeps from her buaian. One can almost hear the voices of her parents down on the beach where a skuci boat suggests that they are busy. In Usik-Mengusik, 1996, only the eyes of the child are seen, yet viewers would swear that they see the boy’s smile, from behind the kain pulikat that hides his mouth! The warmth of a house nearby is expressed by the rumpled aspect of the kain that the boy may have borrowed from his father.