Cheong Laitong is best remembered as one of the ‘Magnificent 7’ artist-heroes from the landmark abstract 1967 GRUP exhibition (It was reprised as REGRUP – 30 Years On in 1997). He with Dzulkifli Buyong were the two most precocious stars in the Wednesday Art Group. He had won 1st Prize in oil / acrylic section in the Salon Malaysia in 1969 and joint 2nd Prize in 1979. In 1962, he won a major award in the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank mural competition. He had short art stints at the Skowhegan School of Art in the United States under a USIS Exchange programme, and another at the LCC Central Art School in London. But his career took a lull for 33 years when he became the creative director and then Asia-Pacific regional director of Rothmans Malaysia. He made a brief comeback in a solo in 1981 at Universiti Malaya. NN Gallery hosted a total of 10 solo exhibitions for him in his comeback, culminating in his Expression Of 60 Years in 2014. Cheong Laitong revelled in huge canvases, giving him more space to explore and expand his ideas though his subject was never anything specific, but invariably based on Nature. He also refused to name his works, allowing for greater interpretations. The only time he turned to specifics of place was in his Shan-Hur: Mountains and Rivers exhibition in 1998. This work with elliptical black spaces on top came after his visit to Jiuzhaigou Valley in Sichuan in April 2006 with his family. But you won’t find anything recognisable to the place he visited. His later works reveal more tones and certainly layers.