Horses are free in the wild, prancing around with gaiety and the hooves kicking up little storms of dust. The horizon is just an imaginary line, separating Heaven and Earth as it were, shifting ambiguously from a sea or land perspective. For Chong Siew Ying, painting horses is more than just the physical attributes of strength, speed and agility, but the verve to use these virtues to chart one’s growth and destiny. And it’s a greater blessing to have a pair to share moments good or bad, to face challenges together with chivalry – till life do them part. The horses are rendered with her lyrical brushstrokes robustly yet tenderly, boosted by her keen observation. This work is part of a dossier of 11 in the Frame of Mind solo exhibition at Ernst & Young Singapore as part of its Asian Art Outreach programme in 2009. Other animals featured include a dog, cats and lions. Chong Siew Ying boldly left for France to further her studies in Art at the L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Versailles (1991-1994) and L’Atelier 63 (1994-1996), supporting herself by working as an au pair part-time, and even had solos at the Maison ch'A, Atelier d’ Maravel and Gallery CafePanique. She was not content with just a Diploma in Graphic Design from the Petaling Jaya College of Art and Design. On her return, she was given residencies at Rimbun Dahan (1999-2000), the Vermont Studio Centre, United States (2001, Freeman Asian Artist Fellowship), and Gwangju Cultural Foundation Asian Artists programme (2012). Her sacrifices bore fruit when she won a Special Award in the Young Contemporary Artists (Bakat Muda Sezaman) competition in 2002, and made it to the finals of the Hong Kong Sovereign Art Prize in 2009. In 2015, she was among 16 Malaysian artists featured in the Art Stage Singapore, under the Being Human: Figuratism project.