Dato' Chuah Thean Teng is an alchemist of the domestic scene in the bullock-cart days before the advent of automaton. Here, the concentration is on an upright rectangle circumscribing the face of a chubby girl, the profile of a woman with her head slightly bent as she pours some rice into a ketupat coconut-leaf casing. It's a kitchen ritual every little girl is expected to pick up, though she looks bored and would rather go outdoors and play with her friends. The woman, obviously the mother, is clad in simple baju Melayu top with a shawl, and her pink lips and flower on the hair providing a spot of colour. She has a gelang (bracelet) on her right wrist. The spiral plant-like pattern on her sarung contrasts sharply with the unusual chequered flooring. Ketupat is a favourite during Ramadan, especially to go with the skewered grilled-meat of satay with its sweet peanut gravy. Dato' Chuah Thean Teng, the world-acknowledged Father of Batik Painting, is among the first artists to practise cross-cultural art themes. He was given a Retrospective in 1965, by the National Art Gallery, which followed up with a Tribute exhibition in 2008. Penang awarded him with the Dato' title in 1998 and the Living Heritage status in 2005. In 1977, he was selected among the world's art elite to take part in the Commonwealth Artists of Fame exhibition, to mark Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee. Teng, as the artist is popularly known, established Yahong Art Gallery, first at Leith Street (1953) and then Batu Ferringhi (1994), which functions as his veritable museum. He had held solo exhibitions in the United States and London (Commonwealth Institute).