From 1999 to 2003, Kow Leong Kiang had scoured the countryside of Kelantan and Terengganu, to paint winsome portraits of pre-adolescent Malay kampung girls, with their innocence, natural beauty and alacrity. In 2015, he reprised these portraits in his wanderings in Bali, but on a much bigger-format canvas. Is any trait discernible between the Malaysian and Indonesian counterparts? In a globalised world of shrinking differences and better diet, age conventions hold still. But cultural traits do offer clues, like this girl in a colourful Indonesian batik print, and a more liberal pose with slightly ruffled hair and showing the neck and upper part of the body. What is perhaps unusual about this girl is her bee-stung lips. This is the second time Leong Kiang's Facescape was put up in the Henry Butcher Art Auction, the first being in the November 2017 edition, where his No. 12 snared a premium of RM44,460. Kow Leong Kiang shot to superstardom when he became the first and only Malaysian to have clinched Southeast Asia's most prestigious award, the Grand Prize of the Philip Morris Asean Art Award, in the finals in Hanoi, Vietnam, in 1998, for his magnum opus, Mr. Foreign Speculator, Stop Damaging Our Country. His other accolades are the Minor Award in the Bakat Muda Sezaman (Young Contemporary Artists) and the Major Award in the National Day competition, both in 1992. Art residencies in Vermont, USA (2004) and Tembi Contemporary in Yogyakarta boosted his exposures and potential. He had also taken part in internationals like Art Busan, Art Formosa and Art Stage Singapore.