Chong Siew Ying’s dreamy monochrome of a misty morning is captured like an intricate trellis imprint on frosted glass but with an aura of passing time and memory. The silhouettes of higher branches of trees seemingly swaying in the wind seem couched between Chinese branch painting melancholy and Western pictorialism of depth and space. The artist’s forte lies in the adroit play of the myriad shades of grey for atmospherics and a contemplative mood. Ah! Then if mine had been the Painter’s hand To express what then I saw; and add the gleam, The light that never was, on sea or land, The Consecration, and the Poet’s dream. William Wordsworth (Elegiac Stanzas,1807) Chong Siew Ying followed in the footsteps of Lai Foong Moi four decades earlier in seeking further art education in France, hers at the L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Versailles and the L’Atelier 63 compared to Lai’s art citadel in Paris. She realised that her diploma in Graphic Design at the Petaling Jaya College of Art and Design was not enough, and being impecunious as a farmer’s daughter, she supported herself by working part-time as an au pair. Like Lai, she earned solos at the Maison Tch’A, Atelier d’Maravel and Gallery Café Panique. An artist’s residency at Rimbun Dahan further burnished her credentials, and it was followed by the Fremont Fellowship at Vermont Studio Centre, United States. She won the Special Award in the Young Contemporary Artists (BMS) competition in 2002, and was a finalist in the Hong Kong Sovereign Art Prize in 2009. She was also featured in Art Stage Singapore in 2015.