This 1982 work by Yeo Hoe Koon shows the intervening disruptions of the blessed natural order in the world by Man, with the reddish-orangey colours probably fanned by some kind of heat. Yet, an inherent beauty that is latent shines through the imminent destruction, the Wordsworthian ‘sordid boon’ of what we have lost. This was around the time of his landscapes like Red Woods Park and Tropical Mood. Here, Hoe Koon plays with the fractured planes imbibed in the works of Cezanne when he was studying in Paris but adapted with telling finesse in his works of landscape and his floral still-life. As he intoned: “Solitude is my inspiration. I have to be alone and at peace with myself, then the ideas begin to slowly flow, bringing forth images from the past locked up in my mind.” At 87, Hoe Koon has found great economic resurgence in the country of his birth, China (Hainan), with recognition in Singapore as an important second-generation artist though he spent many years of his art development in Malaysia too. Yeo Hoe Koon had his tutelage at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore (1955-1957), followed up with the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts (1959-1961), with a solo at Gallery Horizon in Paris and a tour of art museums and galleries in Europe from 1965-1967. He is adept at Chinese brush paintings as well as oil and acrylic and has had several solos in Malaysia, China and Singapore, the last ‘Looking Back, Forging Ahead’ being held at the Hai Hui Art Gallery (now at Tanglin Shopping Centre) in Singapore, from May 8-22, 2021. His first solos were in the Malaya Hall in London in 1961, and in Penang in 1962 after visiting the East Coast. He was included in the touring Malaysian art exhibition in Australia and New Zealand (1966), Europe and America (1967). As an artist with French roots, he also took part in both Pont des Arts exhibitions in 1994 and 1997.