Soon Lai Wai is Malaysian, born in 1970, and graduated from the Saito Academy of Design in 1992. From 1992-97 he worked as an artist in local and overseas advertising companies, and since 1997 he has been a full-time fine art artist. He has exhibited in Malaysia, China, Mongolia, Singapore, Thailand and England.
If the main objective of painting is to express beauty - this aesthetic theory was upheld by artist Soon Lai Wai. La Luna Gallery carries a number of paintings from Soon Lai Wai's lotus and rockscapes series.
Influenced by traditional Chinese art painting, Soon chose Lotus flowers as his topic to express his view of art. Besides growing lotuses in his garden, he also travelled widely to admire their beauty in Malaysia and South East Asia. The broad leaves, succulent petals and long stalks allowed the artist to demostrate their beauty using vibrant colours and a wide range of compositions. Soon tried to breslw away from traditional art painting, adding wild and energetic brush strokes to enliven the works. The jagged lines, splashes of colour, the use of white are harmonized and layered together on his canvases.
After viewing some local and overseas natural scenes and beaches and mountains, the artist fell in love with semi-abstract expressionism. The rockscapes series, absorbed the spirits of Chinese art painting, especially the mountain stroke technical, expressed on the canvas with oil paints. Its powerful strokes play with the empty spaces, abstractly symbolizing the scenery and landscapes. Inspired deeply by Chinese art sense, philosophy and layouts, the artist wants to express the local waterfalls or rocky scenery in all their natural splendour.
