Original idea, original concept, original paintings

Talking about originality, the paintings created by the Art of RAR technique are absolutely original and conceptualised by Mother Nature. They are entirely new, unthought of by any human beings. They are Nature's own work, bearing Nature's trademark of exclusivity in every piece.

The works of many great masters are originals, and also imitations, or inspired by other masters' works. They pick up ideas from each other, innovate or refresh, made improvements to create more exciting works of art.

In the case of Art of RAR, Mother Nature does not need any inspiration from other human masters to create her own art pieces. There is no need to copy or imitate or improve on anyone else works. The works are Mother Nature's thumbprints and origin.

As time goes by, it is likely that such works of art will provide inspiration for other painters to become more creative and to produce even better works. Human artists and painters need inspiration, sometimes guidance from all sources, particularly from Nature. Mother Nature is the source of everything and will create works to inspire and to raise the level of art to ever higher art forms.

Mother Nature is original, the origin.

My solo exhibition came to a close

My exhibition on the Secrets of Mother Nature came to a close after two months at the NUSS Guild House. A few of my paintings have found new homes. A few more could follow but unfortunately the deals did not go through.

The feedbacks from visitors were encouraging. Being a new artist, new technique, The Art of RAR, and a new kind of photopaintings, I am very pleased that people who have seen them appreciate and like them. For those who have acquired my paintings, they should be pleased to know that these are not the usual paintings that one can buy from everywhere.

Every painting is a mystery and a little miracle. There are painted by Mother Nature and appeared in a magic pond, and only visible to a camera. And the photopaintings that finally took form were conceptualised by the mysterious forces of Nature, a work of Nature. It is like Nature speaking or communicating to the mortals with its works. There could be some meanings in each of them that only the gifted could connect.

I am now planning to work on another exhibition with a few new series that are quite different from those that I have exhibited. My first exhibition was more of an introduction to the range of paintings that Mother Nature could share, a glimpse of the power and creativity of Mother Nature. My next exhibition will be more focus, maybe on a couple of series and with more depth.

Woman Dressing - Abstract Realism Series

A piece of abstract rar art of a woman putting on her dress. With the Art of RAR technique I could create large numbers of original pieces, each piece different, to fill up the rooms of a big hotel or a large installation like Marina Bay Sands, MBS or Resorts World Sentosa, RWS. The hotels can claim that every painting in each and every room is different.

Night Walker - Ink Series

A piece of rar art titled Night Walker.

Picasso and Mother Nature - Abstract Series

This is a colourful piece of contemporary art painted by Mother Nature. The original is as usual shot in the water but invisible to the naked eyes. The final painting is created after some processing in colours, contrast etc. The images have some semblance to the distorted features of Picasso's abstract paintings. This is a series of abstract images.

In conversation with Mother Nature

This is a new abstract piece that I have created. It is untitled and not in my Exhibition.

In conversation with Mother Nature

We used to be very close to Nature, living off Nature and walking with Nature. Those were the days when people were living on landed properties, be they attap houses, zinc roof wooden huts or simply some mixed mesh of structure to provide shelter, and spent the days in the field, in the sea, farming for a living. The animals, pigs, goats, fowls, cats and dogs lived in close proximity with human beans, sharing the same common space.

In a highly urbanised lifestyle, it is not surprising that many children today did not know what a chicken or duck looks like. Their lives circulate from one concrete building to the next and revolve around modern gadgetry. The only chicken or animal they know are in small pieces on the dinner table. The closest they get to Nature is likely to be a walk in the rain.

I have been in conversation with Nature daily, in a way, through my art. My 7000 pieces of raw images of simply water taken with my camera will keep me busy for years trying to figure out what Nature has imprinted in them. Daily I will work on a few pieces, reviewing and manipulating them for an insight into the thoughts of Nature. Every frame of digital image that looks innocently bland and boring contains a hidden image or message, or many images and messages that are waiting to reveal themselves. Every picture or photopainting that surfaced is the end result of hours of negotiating with Mother Nature, attempting to understand what Mother Nature wants to show to the human world.

I spend many hours daily working with Mother Nature and talking to her, through her works that are deceptively concealed in the unassuming form of reflection and refraction in a pool of water. Sometimes I wonder if it is real, that Mother Nature could be behind all the photopaintings that came forth like a magician and his doves or pulling a rabbit from a hat. Sometimes I wonder if what I finally put into print is the ultimate image that Nature wanted. Sometimes I wonder if there is a message, a hidden message of some kind that Nature wanted to tell us.

Everytime I attempt to look at another perspective, a totally new concept and picture could appear that is entirely different in nature from my earlier interpretation. It is like trying to discover a mystery, to understand Mother Nature through her paintings. Through my photopaintings, Mother Nature is like being there with me, occasionally tipping me off with a little exciting shades and shapes that would lead to more fascinating ways of looking at something so common and unemotional, a reflection or refraction of nothing but light in water. This is going to be a long conversation with Mother Nature and is like an unending journey, as I have only taken my first step, a tip toe, into this wonderland of paintings out of thin air, or simply water.

Painting with your camera

The painters are some of the most talented artists around. They train hard, work hard and acquire great skills in wielding a very primitive instrument developed thousands of years ago and still in its original form, the brush, to create and paint great works of arts and masterpieces. A good piece of brush could be had for a few dollars.

What the painters can do the photographers can’t despite the highly expensive and sophisticated precision instruments in their hands. The camera is not only a piece of fine engineering tool but also a computer added in. The best could fetch several tens of thousands of dollars. Any decent piece of camera of professional grade would cost several thousand dollars.

Other than in capturing great shots that are newsworthy, not many photographers are able to create photos that could come near to a masterpiece of an artist/painter. Are the photographers ready to accept the limitations of their expensive tool and resign to the fate that photography is only photography and still found wanting when compare to what a cheap piece of ancient primitive brush can do?

This is about to change. The camera can paint. There are still many limitations that the camera cannot take the photographers to the world of paintings. But with a new technique that I have developed, the world of paintings is beckoning. Using the technique called The Art of RAR, short for Reflection and Refraction, I am able to create paintings using the camera. My experiment into this realm of photopainting is still in its nascent stage, but the potential of painting with the camera is only limited to the imagination and creativity of a photopainter. 

The kind of paintings that could be created from The Art of RAR technique could vary from realism to abstract art with ease, using only natural light and the natural environment. More creations are waiting to be discovered in a control environment with the right set ups and accessory equipment. Photography is not going to be the same again. Photographers need not be limited by what they were used to be doing with their cameras and could venture into many unknown frontiers of artistry. Technology has given the photographer and their cameras room for more creativity and innovation and experimentation.

The Art of RAR is only a small step forward.

The Art of RAR Exhibition

The most compelling story of a new photopainting technique developed by a Singaporean is waiting to get some notice from the local art scene and the critics. I am still promoting this new art form/technique locally and if I fail to get any support or notice, then I would have to go out of this little island to seek the attention of the world. While our local critics and reporters are busily covering the works of foreign talents, incidentally my work was first featured by a Malaysian lifestyle magazine, the Essenze a couple of months ago.

The most remarkable feature of this technique is that I could create many pieces of artwork, on paper or canvas, just by pointing my camera to a pond of the water. With proper set up, I could create many never seen before paintings and concepts that no human artiste could think of.

My work is a collaboration with Mother Nature with the latter doing the conceptualisation and main features of a painting and I doing the finishing touches. These unique and revolutionary paintings are now on show at NUSS Guild House at Kent Ridge till 21 Dec 12. More than 30 pieces of my work are being exhibited and all are welcome.

Admission is Free.

Taking photography to new heights

40 years ago when I held a SLR it was like holding a precision machine with very accurate engineering to be able to do what it was designed to do. Today, a DSLR is still a very precise machine and more. It comes with a computer inside. This is the kind of power in the hands of a photographer.

40 years ago I was messing around in the dark room all alone, with chemicals and fearing a little ray of light sneaking into the room. And the processing of the negatives and printing were mainly done manually with a lot of guess works. Manipulating them for different effects was tedious and failure rate was extremely high. Today, every thing a dark room processing can do can be done much better and easier, with more control and refinement using a processing software loaded into a computer. No more messy stuff and expensive errors that had to be thrown away at great cost. The software can work practically at anywhere with no fear of sneaky lights. And any error can simply be erased and redo again at practically no cost.

The tools of photography and the nature of photography have taken a qualitative leap to allow photographers to do many things that they could not do before. With such powerful tools and computing power, there are many avenues to explore for the photographer. I was not content with just doing and repeating the same thing all over again, shooting the best portrait, the best bird in flight, night photography, sports photography, travel photography, macro or micro photography. In many of these areas, everything has been done and shot by the professionals.

With two computers, one in the hand, one sitting on the table, and a more power third computer in the head, I started to explore and experiment with the untouchables, the taboos, the things that were frowned upon, striking out into new frontiers, to capitalise on the power of 3 computers. Photographers must do justice to the enormous creative powers their tools are able to perform today.

The first step I took was to embrace refraction, something that was nearly totally disregarded by photographers for the distortion it caused. Conventional photography is all about reflection, shooting an object to get a clear and crisp image. At times blurring and zooming effects were introduced, bokehs etc, but still an act of reflection.

Refraction is about seeing light travelling through more than one medium of different density. The bending of light through a prism to reveal the rainbow colours is a basic example of reflection. Light contains many things that the naked eyes could not see. Light is after all an electromagnetic wave. The signals received on radio or the television, through the phone, are all electromagnetic waves with information of sound and images embedded in them. The decoder in the TV unscrambles the information to make them visible and audible.

Light entering and exiting a medium like water are distorted by refraction and reflection. It also picks up other information that we could not see but exists. If only such information can be translated into something visible, revealing what they were like a TV image through a decoder, the final image can be stunning and unpredictable.

The Art of RAR or Reflection and Refraction is a technique that I have developed exactly to do this function. The images taken in the water will not be seen through the naked eyes or the camera sensor. The water will still appear as an image of water in the sensor. Through processing, the multiple images hidden in the light that came out of water can be seen in all its glories.

The Art of RAR is a key or a decoder to do this job. Many unseen images cannot be obtained from a seemingly non existence object in the water. With this methodology, photography is now able to do something new, something that was impossible and now possible. The images that came out from this technique can still be like a photographic image or an image that looks exactly like a painting with no trace of it being a photograph. It is a new field of photography that modern technology makes possible with the help of the creative and imaginative mind of a photographer. The possibilities are unlimited and photographers, with their creativity and imagination, could move beyond the confines of conventional photography, to explore new frontiers using the camera to produce new art forms.

The Art of RAR is not the only new technique available and more creative usages of the camera and technology would likely to lead to more innovative ways to expand the art of photography and how to use the camera. The art of photography is beginning to see new light.

Chua Chin Leng

The Secrets of Mother Nature Exhibition at NUSS Guild House Kent Ridge 22 Oct-21 Dec 12.

Everyone is invited to the Exhibition. These are some of the works I put up. Admission is Free.

Paintings of god 神画 - Yellow and blue series

The painting on left is one of 39 pieces of works in the exhibition held at NUSS Guild House, Kent Ridge from 22 Oct  to 21 Dec.

Paintings of god 神画

What is 神画 or paintings of god? The Secrets of Mother Nature Exhibition now at NUSS Guild House at Kent Ridge(22 Oct – 21 Dec) is about a new photopainting art form.  I have developed this technique after many years of experimentation. It is called the Art of RAR or Reflection and Refraction. It involves the taking of invisible images in the water and turning them into paintings.

Such paintings have never been done or seen before. It is about a photograph but not a photograph, a painting but not a painting, an original but not. It is not computer graphic art or animation. It is a hybrid of a photograph and a painting created not by a human artist but by Mother Nature, or god in a liberal sense. It is painted by a human artist but it is not. Let me explain this new art form before I confuse everyone.

Why is it a photograph but not a photograph?

A photograph is the product of an image taken by a camera of an object. There is a direct object image relationship. In this art form an object is photographed using the camera. But the image captured is not that of the object. The object is simply water in a pond and nothing else. The image can be anything, looking anything other than water. The image is inherent in the water but is not visible to the naked eye and needed some processing to reveal what it really is, and definitely not the water that it originally appeared when being photographed.

It is a painting but not a painting

A conventional painting is normally painted by an artist onto paper or canvas with ink, pigment, water colour, oil, crayon etc. The painting in this case is printed by a printer and can be pigment, ink or oil. It has some similarities with a conventional painting in the sense that it came from an artist’s idea or thought. The difference is that this idea or concept comes from the thought of Mother Nature and can only be captured by a camera before being translated into a visible form.

It is the original but not the original.

The real original of a painting created by this method is invisible, is fluid and is in the water, and vanishes the moment it is photographed and would never be seen again. This original concept exists in a different plane, like a human thought. Thus the painting in print form can be called the original as it is the only available arising from the first thought in the water.

It is not computer graphic art or animation

The painting comes from a digital image of a camera. It only goes through some processing that are similar to darkroom processes, eg brightness, contrast, colour, sharpness, intensity, brilliance etc. There may be some touching up of spots or removal of minor blemishes. No major alteration of the image is done. The authenticity of the digital image is preserved and can be easily returned to the original form with the hitting of the reset button.

It is painted by a human artist but it is not

The conceptualizing of the painting is done by Mother Nature. Everything is already there and the contribution of the human artist, the photopainter, is to assist in bringing out the details of the painting that are otherwise invisible to the naked eye. The photopainter, the human artist, can only do what is already present in the original image and does not introduce new or additional elements into the paintings. As the possibilities of each image are quite varied, the photopainter could interpret it in many ways and there is no certainty that the image in print is exactly what Mother Nature intended. This is the part played by the human photopainter, introducing some subjectivity into the final form.

In summary, every painting created by this technique is conceived and designed by god or Mother Nature, photographed and fine tuned by a photopainter. It is a photograph turned into a painting with Nature doing the bulk of the creative part of the work. The photopainter just collaborates with Mother Nature and the final work is the effort of both parties with Mother Nature playing the bigger role.

This art form or technique is intrinsically a Singaporean creation.

 

Chua Chin Leng - Photopainter

Sea of Humanity

A piece of rar art. The background looks like sea of humanity with many different expressions. This is created by shooting at a shoal of fish. The fish in refracted forms can be seen in the foreground in red and white or gold and white.

Mother Nature the Painter神画(22 Oct -21 Dec 2012)

A unique exhibition of paintings by Mother Nature the Painter, is available for viewing for the first time. 40 pieces of work in pigment colours on archival paper will be on show at the NUSS Guild House at 9 Kent Ridge Drive, University of Singapore.  The work, a collaboration between the Painter, Mother Nature, that conceived and created every painting, and the Photopainter, Chua Chin Leng, is brought to life using a photography technique called The Art of Reflection and Refraction(RAR).

The work of Mother Nature is never found on canvas or on a medium convenient and recognizable by the mortals. In this exhibition, the artistry of Mother Nature as a painter is finally on display in a form never seen before.

The public may need to be accompanied by a member of the NUSS Graduate’s Club, or can contact me, email redbeansg@yahoo.com, for a convenient time to view the paintings.

Chua Chin Leng

The title of this piece of rar art is called The Inner Consciousness or The Third Eye. It is a face within a face. The original face opens up, right in middle from forehead to the upper lips, to reveal another face or the inner consciousness. This inner face has two eyes, one open, one close. The closed eye is the normal vision that would retire when the third eye is opened and seeing at a different dimension or plane of existence.

This piece is totally conceived and created naturally, by Mother Nature. This piece will be at the exhibition.

The Prosecutor - Portrait series

A piece of rar art created by Mother Nature. This is a fierce looking portrait with an inversed mirror image. It was not visible until it was processed.

Contemporary - Pink and red series

Conceived and painted by Mother Nature.

Essenze features my paintings

Essenze is a top life style magazine in Malaysia, similar to the Peak magazine here. It has featured my paintings, 8 pieces, in a 3 page spread in its latest issue, Vol 27. This can be viewed electronically at http://chtmarketsource.com/. On its content page, p11 is my photograph. My paintings are in p112, p113 and p114.
My paintings are from the series Abstract Faces and Pixiu or Heavenly Beasts.

Michael J - Thriller

(I have attached the UOB Painting of the Year 2012 winning painting of a Stressed School Boy for your interest)

A portrait of Michael Jackson painted by Koi fish. This is a piece of rar art done with Koi fish forming every stroke of colours in the painting.

When I have done my finishing touch to this photo I was in a state of confusion. It did look like the King of Pop and also the King of Rock. The costume could fit any one of them. My mind kept swinging from KOP to KOR. One moment it looked more like one and the next moment it looked like the other. Quite exasperating.

I sat back to take a long stare at the photo. Then a voice screamed out. 'Look, it's Michael! I am Michael! Look carefully at my nose and my complexion. It is all written on my face.'

I stood up and took a second look. Oh God, it was Michael alright. And Michael it is and Michael it shall be. It reminded me of Thriller.

Remove the plastic and cosmetics, I am still who I am.

Village girl

Portrait of a village girl.

Contemporary Water colour series

A piece of RAR Art created by Mother Nature using the Art of RAR Technique.

Happy Red Series

This piece is called Eternity. It is one of my Happy Red Collection. A piece of rar art created by Mother Nature using the Art of RAR technique.

Runway 2020 Series

This is my Runway 2020 Series with models in fanciful hats, hairdos and dresses. They are rar art pieces created by the Art of RAR Technique. I have a collection of more than 30 pieces of this series conceived and created totally by Mother Nature. It is fashion out of this world. A rare treat on what Mother Nature is capable of doing in fashion designs.

Time Scroll Series

This looks like a piece of torn and tattered ancient scroll. It is actually a painting that I have created using the Art of RAR Technique. I have a series of them that could give the impression of a volume of ancient text.

Heavenly beasts - Tien Lu/Pi Xiu Series

This is another series of photopaintings that I have created with the help of Mother Nature. The image has never been seen before. They are not the mythical dragon or lion or the qiling. The closest I could relate this to is the pixiu, a smaller creature claimed to be the proetector of the owner and his wealth. Many images of the pixiu have been crafted, mostly in stone or jade, and displayed in homes or business premises. This photopainting could be hung on the wall at the entrance area, or the reception area of an organization in place of the carved varieties. A great piece of gift for new home owners.


The unique feature of this kind of photopainting using the Art of RAR technique is that the images must first be photographed using a camera as the originals are unrecognizable in the water and will be there only momentarily. They will only appear in the full glory after some processing. This is a very unique and revolutionary way of painting, like painting the thoughts of Nature.

My tree of Life series is also created in the same manner.

A little mystery, a little miracle, a whole new way of painting.

Cauldron of Life Series

This is a series on life and the the fire one has to go through. Surviving the cauldron of fire of life, one comes out as solid steel. Failure will see a melting down and turning into scrap iron. Living is a test of will, a test of character to survive in a path one chose to tread. It is not a walk in the garden. There are many twists and turns and one could be burnt any time in this journey of a life time.

Aung San Su Kyi - The Inhuman Lines Series

I am seeing this gutsy woman everyday and several times today on TV. She is definitely the woman of the decade or the century, the feminine half of Nelson Mandela. I can't resist showing off a painting of her by Mother Nature. Don't expect a photographic representation of Suu Kyi as the canvas used by Mother Nature is nothing but water. The nature of water is ever fluid and changing and any images will be changed completely the next moment. This did not prevent Mother Nature for creating an image of Suu Kyi displaying her as a very strong will lady. In the painting she is all cool and filled with steely determination to stay her course and her fight for the freedom of Myanmar. Mother Nature likes her.

This painting is done using the Art of RAR Technique with Mother Nature as the master painter. This technique is developed by yours truly, a native art form invented by me, a Singaporean. Yes, it is a new Singaporean art form, not recognised by the conventional art community yet. The uniqueness of this technique is that you do not need an object to take a photograph. I have shot the Tree of Life without a tree and Suu Kyi without her presence. I have painted women, historical relics, celestial beasts, abstract faces, fishes etc etc, all from nothing. The women series which I called The Inhuman Lines includes Angelina, Catherine, Jodie, Meryl, Merkel, Oprah, Fei Fei and Zoe, to name a few.

In this aspect, it is like a painter painting something from his head, an image or form that he conceived of but not necessary an object. Only a painter can do that but no photographer can, until now. Photographers must have an object to shoot. Shooting an ideal or imaginary image is just not possible in photography until I discovered this technique. The images forming in the water are just like the images inside the head of an artist that no camera can capture. Now in a way I can.

I am claiming this unique photography technique as a Singaporean invention. It is still in its nascent stage of development and all my paintings were captured in environment that I have no control of. If I have the facilities and set up I would be able to make a more conducive environment and condition for Mother Nature to show much more of what she could do.

This painting is one of a series called the Inhuman Lines. The others include Angelina, Meryl, Jodie, Merkel, Oprah, Zoe and more.

Key features of Art of RAR

There are some unique features using the Art of RAR technique

1. The painting is done using the camera. Without the camera, it cannot be done.
2. There is no object to focus on, or the 'object' is literally a passing image in the water.
3. The process is like an artist painting an idea or image in his head, not painting a physical object.
4. The final image is a mystery and can be anything.
5. The image can be totally out of this world.
6. The image is not conceived by a human mind.
7. Technically the painter is Mother Nature.
8. The final product is a photopainting, a thought of Nature, not a photograph of an object.
9. The technique bridges photography and painting, when it was impossible to shoot a photograph without an object, now it can be done, in a way.

Chua Chin Leng

What is Art of RAR?

This is a new technique in photography that bridges photography with paintings. The end result of this technique is photo painting or rar art as I called it.

In photography, an object is needed for the camera to create an image. No object means no image. In painting, an artist can paint from an object or from an idea or image in his head, ie no physical object.

The Art of RAR Technique allows an image to be captured in the camera without a physical object. It is like photographing the idea or thought of Mother Nature. There is no object, just a passing image that exists for a moment, like a thought, and gone forever. This technique happens to be able to do just this, capturing this momentary image and allowing it to be printed on paper like a painting. The final painting or image created can be out of this world as they are not conceived by the human mind, and can be totally refreshing.

It is a new and revolutionary technique that I claim as my very own, a Singaporean art form. I don't think anyone has yet done what I have done. The photopaintings or rar arts are one of a kind. Some may look conventional but some are totally out of this world.

Chua Chin Leng

Untitled Abstracts -Childhood series

Two untitled abstract paintings.

A Life Time - Mother Nature's Best Series

This is a piece of very complex rar art. It combines a blending of colours, criss crossing of lines and strokes and layering. All these features come together in a harmonious way without anything looking out of place. The colours are beautiful, the strokes are mature and well executed while the layering gives it depth and complexities.
There is a couple in the centre of the painting and it looks like their whole lives were unfolding in front of them. As one views the painting slowly, more and more images will appear to tell a series of stories of the lives of the couple. Take your time to enjoy this beautiful creation of Mother Nature.

Epidermis(Colour of the Skin) Series

Two images representing the process of skin rejuvenation with old cells being discarded and new skin forming beneath. The skins may be of different colours, but the structure is the same.

Tree of Life Series

A little miracle-A perfect gift of faith

These images appeared on the water surface momentarily and taken before they were gone. They reminded me of the biblical Tree of Life and can truly be said to have been painted by the hands of God, or Mother Nature. I have seen many paintings of the Tree of Life but nothing like these before. Judge a tree by the fruits it bears. This tree bears life! Not by the imagination and intervention of human beings.

The painting here is the best of this series. Look carefully at the leaves and trunk and you may find some little images that look like human forms. The images on the lower trunk are smaller as if they were growing and maturing at the upper half of the tree.

As an exercise, try counting the number of human images on the tree and don't forget the beautiful woman with a white shawl in the centre of the trunk.

This painting will make a perfect gift of faith to a church or elder. A Tree of Life as gift to new home owners!

Relics Series

A series on relics of past ages.

Fossil Series

This is a series of intricate artwork that resemble fossils with their embedded historical particles, patterns and parts.

Dance Series 3636 and 3332

This is a collection of images that resemble dancers in motion. This is Dance 3636 and 3332. I am separating this series from my Verses Series where the symbols are simpler in appearance.

Sensual Abstract Series

Here is a couple in an intimate position, titled Intimacy. The bottom image is a couple embracing. The lady has long black tresses.

Abstract Face Series

A series on abstract mysterious faces. The first piece is called Clairvoyance. It has an eye in the centre. The second piece is Contemplation, the face of a man in deep thought. Other paintings in this series include Mirror Image, Schizophrenia, The Orator and many others.

Celestial Rock Series

The photopainting can be viewed from by turning it upside down or from any of the sides. I added a VA to the title of each image, with VA meaning variable angle. When tired of looking at the picture, just turn it around for a different perspective.

The top piece is CR350VA and bottom is CR355VA.

Koi photos, images

Hi,
Koi lovers buying koi photos from fotolia posted by me can view more koi photos at www.chua-chinleng.fineartamerica.com or from this blog.