A deformed visage in a desolate parched landscape seems a perverse symbiotic combination of the marginalised, but such is the societal norms of perfection, though the word is a misnomer. Is there inclusiveness in this fast-paced world today, what with the environmental degradation of Nature’s gift committed by Man in the name of progress, or worse, greed. These are questions tossed around by Tiong Chai Heing in the work appropriately titled, The Desolate Echo. In 2015, she won the hugely coveted UOB Painting Of The Year, in the Established Artist Category, for her watercolour work, Stifling, about the hazards caused by deforestation of oil palm plantations. The award comes with a US$25,000 award. She also won the Bronze Prize in the 2017 UOB Painting Of The Year. Tiong Chai Heing is among the shortlist in the 2019 Bakat Muda Sezaman competition. She is a fulltime artist since graduating from the Dasein Academy of Art in November 2008. She was also a finalist in the 2009 Malaysian Emerging Artist Award and the 1MCAS Award in Johor Baru. In May, she held her second solo, Impermanence Is The Antidote Of Frailness, at the Suma Orientalis in Petaling Jaya. Her first solo, Vibrant, in August-September 2010, was at HOM Art Trans, after her residency there. In 2010, she also took part in the Sasaran workshop programme and the Asia Art Link Cultural Centre of the Philippines (CCP).