Borneo (Sarawak and Sabah) is home to some of the most fascinating biodiversity. As botany goes, there is a book by Josie Smith, Wild Flowers of Sabah and Sarawak. It’s quite a detour for self-taught Ramsay Ong to be doing a work connected with the “wild flowers of Sarawak.” Still, his father was the renowned agriculturalist Ong Kee Chong. Is this Amorphophallus or is Ramsay Ong being just polite in using an euphemism for a decidedly erotic work. For if at all he wants to do wild flowers, which are abundance all over Malaysia, there are thousands of much more colourful “varieties” for his canvas, in this case, paper. But then again, Ramsay Ong, who is a fifth generation from the clan of the Kapitan Cina Ong Tiang Swee (he’s his great grandson) always works close to nature in his art. When he went to live in Sri Lanka for two years, he was based in the Hantane Hills and drew his inspirations from there, and was awarded the Rathna Deepa Award by the Sri Lanka Hill Country Cultural and Arts Association. In the late 1970s, he used the processed bark of the Tekalong (wild breadfruit tree) his bark-cloth canvas. Another popular medium he works on is batik, for which he had won an Outstanding Prize. He was also awarded the Ahli Bintang Sarawak in the 1970s. He set up a gallery in Kuala Lumpur, Artrageously Ramsay Ong Gallery, which he later moved to his home base in Kuching. He first worked as a draughtsman at the Postal and Telecommunications Department and later a teacher. His first solo was held at the British Council in Kuching in 1965.