Description
Tan Wei Kheng is a true modern-day Penan warrior. It is through his portfolio of portraits that one gets to know about the itinerant Penan tribes living in the jungle interiors of Sarawak. Wei Kheng makes regular visits not only to paint individual portraits – whether they be ordinary members or chiefs, men or women, adult or children – but also to take clothes, medicine, food provisions, reading and writing materials for them. Sometimes, they also help out with small infrastructural jobs. The portraits are realistic, compassion and even affectionate. Wei Kheng's exquisite black and white portrait captures the inner life of the figure, as he depicts the side profile of a bearded Penan man with an expressive gaze.
Through the works of Tan Wei Kheng, the world is appraised of the lot of the Penan, Kenyah, Kayan, Kelabit, Iban and other tribes, in the flesh, all eking a living in the deep Sarawak interiors. Wei Kheng found fame in 2009 in an exhibition in Zurich, Switzerland (Gallery Avanthay Contemporary), when all his portraits of the indigenous people in Sarawak were sold out. Self-taught, he held his first solo at the Miri Boat Club (1991), followed by Hilton Hotel Kuching (1992), Holiday Inn Miri (1993), Rihga Royal Hotel Miri (1994), Hornbill House Miri (2001), Art House Gallery Kuala Lumpur (2003), Panaga Club, Brunei (2009), Metro Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur (2012). His solo called Vanishing Jungle Childhood was held at RKFA in July 2020.