Beyond a painting, Teng is unique in showing his brilliant understanding of colour and interplay of the pot. Using red, he accentuates the colour of the pot and collaged the pot carried by the lady to contrast modernist movements in those days with a more traditional backdrop of a village scene that was rapidly replaced by concrete buildings. He again highlighted a pot placed below a tree red to remind the viewer the importance of tradition beyond our normal human tendency to embrace something new. All these remind of us of tradition in art and culture, and, as water as portrayed as pots in most civilisations, life. The blue-greenish tone is chosen to contrast the colour red. Dato’ Chuah Thean Teng, world acknowledged as the originator of Batik Painting, never stopped innovating since he developed the art in 1953. In Chinese Art In The 20th Century (1959), Professor Michael Sullivan wrote: “In Teng, Malaya claims to have found her first national painter. Teng has conceived the idea of making pictures in batik — not just decorative designs, but large and frequently complex figure compositions.” He was the first Malaysian (after British-born Peter Harris) to be given a Retrospective in 1965 by the National Art Gallery (NAG again accorded him a Tribute exhibition in 2008), while Penang accorded him a Retrospective in 1994. In 1998, he was conferred a Dato’ship and in 2005, Penang’s ‘Living Heritage Award’. Images of his works, Two Of A Kind (1968) and Tell You A Secret (1987) were chosen for UNICEF’s greeting cards. He was the only Malaysian in a roll of great world artists invited to take part in the Commonwealth Artists of Fame exhibition in London, to mark the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1977.