Malaysian Chinese's Mixed Cultural Identity in Painting Works

Abstract

Malaysia's multi-ethnic social structure has led Malaysian Chinese artists to come into contact with and adapt to the cultures of different ethnic groups while maintaining their Chinese culture, resulting in a new mixed cultural identity. This study aims to analyse the visual changes and artistic language of the artists in their paintings and to understand the impact of cultural awareness on the style of expression through a qualitative study of seven works from the 1990s. The results show that Malaysian Chinese artists favoured Western artistic mediums and incorporated Chinese ink and wash elements in their works, using Chinese images and customs to reflect the local human life in Malaysia. Currently, the field is not widely researched, and the significance of this study is to provide perspectives on interpreting Chinese paintings and to enrich the research.

Keywords: Malaysian Chinese; Mixed culture; Painting