The sun, the wind and the water – the elements that link subjects and bring dynamism and depth to landscapes – entered Fee Ming’s artistic world, never to leave it. Water especially, will constantly be used in Fee Ming’s paintings, in turns running playfully in Flowing By, 1992 (page 11), transparent and friendly in Chit-Chat, 1989 (page 34) or, as the sea in the later series of Awaiting, bringing food and life and also anxiety. In contrast, wood lends its quiet presencem, carrying the mark of its age as a reminder of the passage of time.

Fee Ming often deliberately left his main subject out the composition. “There are occasions when something is better expressed by lending the imagination to invent it,” he said. In Youth and Children Together, 1985, only the shoes and the bags of the children are seen. In the early paintings, there are nets, birdcages, clothing, even bedsheets, belonging to villagers, but the owners are often absent. Were they really “out at sea”?

Artist in Terengganu follow the Muslim tradition of banning the living form. In woodcarving and in brassware, they explored floral patterns and stylised rendering of the living beings. Perhaps Fee Ming was influenced by such traditions. There was no supremacy, as in Europe for example, of the human form. Free to follow his own sense of timing Fee Ming allowed the people to come out of his sketchbooks step by step.

At first, Fee Ming painted people as a kind of living background, in bits and pieces, focusing on the features most important for this composition - the fold of a sarong at the waist, the contour of an elbow, the stretching fabric on an imposing posterior - leaving the head and torso out of the composition. This strange approach was very effective, the mood of the scene was not distracted by the expression of a face.

Fee Ming focused on the solid hips of a working woman, the straight back of a fisherman and the thin shoulders of a child. In their posture alone, one can read their steadfastness and their patience. The artist made the bareness of an existence felt just by portraying bony feet and rubber thongs on the sand. Batik is everywhere. It is not the tastefully hand-done Javanese kind, but it modest chop-printed (block printed) cousin, a cloth fit for daily work. Introduced in Terengganu at the beginning of the 20 th century as a cheaper replacement of its Indonesian counterpart, it brought a note of flowery brightness to the kampong landscape… and a wealth of visual challenge for the artist. These carefree kain batik taught Fee Ming to use bright colours – rather unconventional in watercolour.

Beaches played an important role in the like of the villagers. Fee Ming often painted women gathered on the sand to get the best price for small ikan bilis that they will turn into a budu sauce or for the ikan selayang that will be used to make their famous kerupuk sausages. They also wait for the boats to come back (Awaiting I and Awaiting III, 1991). Their livelihood depends on the sea. The fate of their men too. Sometime, someone does not come back. Villagers search the horizon tirelessly.