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Social Realism By Chua Mia Tee

Decent Essays

Chua Mia Tee is one of Singapore’s leading realist painter, often known for his oil paintings, which portray Singapore’s culture. Having grown up during Singapore’s tumultuous years, his early paintings reflect nationalistic concerns that occupied Singapore during our early years. More specifically, his artist style has been called Social Realism, a school of art that responds to the industrial revolution and urbanisation, focusing more on working class realities. Many of Singapore’s social realists blended anti-colonial sentiment, nationalist aspirations and socialist concerns in various proportions in their work.

Chua believes that realistic art helps audiences to understand and identify with the work more easily, thus allowing the art to have more meaning and greater impact on viewers. To …show more content…

The society that these individuals lived in had a significant impact on their education. During colonial rule, many indigenous Malays and the majority of the non-English speaking communities of Singapore suffered various forms of oppression. The independence of Malaya was thus seen as an opportunity for the diverse ethnic groups to break free from this. The slogan Merdeka, which means “independence” in the Malay language, epitomises the rise of anti-colonial and nationalist sentiments. Independence in this context refers to the collective Malayan states and Singapore. Despite being under colonial rule for a significant period of time, a strong society existed. There was a strong notion that the three main ethnic groups of Singapore would come together to build a nation-state together. Posters could be seen everywhere promoting the study of the national language – Malay. English was not accepted by the masses back in the past, as they perceived it as the language of the colony. Malay in essence, was as a tool to unite people from the various ethnic groups; to enable the common people to come together to build a better

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