Vases of Flowers

In his early years, Liu Kang studied painting in Shanghai and Paris. In 1942, he settled in Singapore, often traveling to Malaya for sketching and creations, and he developed a unique “Nanyang style”—an art movement cultivated by Chinese immigrant artists in Singapore from the 1940s to the 1960s. This style focuses on tropical landscapes, blending various Parisian art influences with traditional Chinese ink techniques, characterized by bright lighting and vivid colors. His work Vases of Flowers is a typical example of this style. In the painting, pink lilies and coneflowers complement each other, while the fruits on the side are also depicted with vibrant colors and confident brushstrokes. Inspired by batik techniques, he used gradient staining and blank space to outline flowers and still life, endowing the composition with a decorative quality. Liu Kang believes that painting is a flat art form rather than a mere imitation of nature, and therefore he never deliberately imparts a sense of three-dimensional feature to his works.