ZOE CHONG SENG

Zoe Chong-Seng is a well-regarded figurative painters working in the Indian Ocean region.
Her subjects are invariably ‘ordinary’ Seychellois people doing the kind of things that ordinary people do. They wash dirty dishes, they hang around waiting for buses, they stagger home under the weight of heavy bags of shopping, they sprawl on the couch and watch television.
One body of recent work is centred upon people in transit – the context here being a domestic and, in terms of distance, a modest one. 

Other series have embraced the themes of relationship disintegration, psychological space and Seychellois youth (the artist lectures at the nation’s sole post-16 art and design college). Chong Seng’s images are often small in size, but they radiate an attractive and compelling intensity through her process of building the painted surface through multiple applications of oil paint, some washed into transparency, others more emphatic and solid.

The works explore contemporary life within distinct collections, in which the human form is invariably the key visual element within carefully arranged narratives which possess the feel, at times, of mise en scenes.