HE painted on jute, gunny sack, straw and other unusual South-east Asian materials. He drew on Chinese, Malay and Western aesthetic traditions and synthesised them into his own distinctive style. Among the Nanyang artists, Cheong Soo Pieng was arguably the most innovative and iconic.

It is fitting, then, that the National Gallery Singapore has subjected his works to an in-depth material analysis, using tools such as X-ray scans and infrared photography, to reveal his creative processes and use of materials. In South-east Asia, it is the first of such attempts to uncover an artist’s creative processes by dissecting the elemental composition of pigments and mediums.

The exhibition titled Cheong Soo Pieng: Layer By Layer highlights 30 artworks hailing from the 1950s to the 1980s. Each has been analysed by Dr Diana Tay, conservator and founder of BARC Labs, with exhibition curator Teo Hui Min, conservators from Heritage Conservation Centre and radiographers from the Singapore General Hospital.