Bio

Meet Ong Hwee Yen, a passionate artist based in Singapore, her vibrant paintings capturing the essence of the city’s cultural landscape in her distinctive colourful palette and expressive style. Her creations focus on the beauty of traditional Chinese architecture, the elegance of peranakan shophouses and the rich heritage of the region. 

From a young age, Yen was drawn to the world of painting. She harboured thoughts of being an artist but given the prevailing typical Singaporean parent sentiment at the time, she went the conventional route and maintained her penchant for creativity, from music composition to travel photography and writing and eventually back to the active exploration of art in 2005. 

Her favourite artists are Cezanne, Edvard Munch, Van Gogh, Chagall and Kandisky, and their post-impressionist modernist influences come through in her works. With a child like eye, she explores the world with her art journey going hand in hand, giving rise to series of her travel escapades or dreams-inspired abstractness modern artworks. Over the years, she has developed a distinctive contemporary style and her work has been showcased in various exhibitions and her paintings acquired by buyers around the world.

Art finally brought her full circle to her hometown where she now has a studio and dedicates her craft to creating meticulous depictions of beloved nooks and corners and her deep connection to them, oft with a sense of whimsicality. 

Largely self-taught, Yen gained much from attending art workshops and interaction with experienced art practitioners, from studying art history and the journey of masters, learning from their works and techniques, to exchanges and collaborations with fellow artists. Increasingly, it is everyday life that is the teacher - places, people, things that move her into translating those feelings on canvas - especially in the world now where each day and its littlest things are the essence of life itself to be treasured.

Exhibitions
2024 - "Affordable Art Fair" Singapore 2024, Studio Fine Art Gallery - F1 Pit Building
2022 - "Affordable Art Fair" Singapore 2022, Studio Fine Art Gallery - F1 Pit Building
2022 - "Methods of Abstraction; The Exquisite Discernibles & Inedible Marks" group exhibition - One East Asia (virtual)
2019 - "ENSEMBLE: coming out into Abstraction" group exhibition - The Arts House
2018 - "DREAMembrance" art exhibition - That Spare Room
​2017 -  “Artscape” 1st ed – SOTA Gallery 
2016 -  “Sudah Makan? (Have you eaten?)” group exhibition – Fullerton Hotel
2016 -  “Art Apart Fair” 7th ed – Parkroyal Hotel
2015 -  “Mosaic” group exhibition – Volvo Art Loft
2014 -  “Exchange” group exhibition – MyArtSpace
2012 -  “Bridging Cultures” opening exhibition – Rosella Gallery
2012 -  “Spain Camino Series” solo exhibition – Bilbao Restaurant
2010 -  “Colours with Passion” group exhibition – Tembusu Art Gallery
2010 -  “Breakthrough” group exhibition – Fill Your Walls Gallery
2009 -  “Alfreso Art Fair” – Clifford Square
2009 -  “6 PerspectEVEs” group exhibition – The Art Loft @ Volvo

Publication
​2011 -  “International Contemporary Artists Vol III” – I.C.A. Publishing

Education
​2018 -  Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (Certificate in Western Abstract Painting)​

___________________________