About
John is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice explores the themes of being, memory and identity through painting, spatial forms and mixed media. Bridging Eastern and Western philosophical traditions, he approaches art as a site of attunement, where meaning emerges through resonance, restraint and material encounter.
Following a 30-year career in corporate management, John transitioned to a full-time art practice in 2021. He holds a business degree from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and is currently completing the BA (Hons) Fine Arts programme at LASALLE College of the Arts. Shaped by his experience as part of the Malaysian Chinese diaspora, and by having lived across multiple cultural contexts, his cross-cultural perspective informs his artistic inquiry and sensibility.
Drawing on comparative philosophy, phenomenology and existential aesthetics, John’s practice evolves through the processes of reduction, layering and clearing. Images emerge gradually through attentive engagement with material, time and space, reflecting an interest in how meaning is disclosed. His works cultivate conditions for sustained reflection, inviting viewers to reconsider perception, presence and the act of seeing—encouraging openness, curiosity and alternative ways of engaging with the world.
IG/FB @johnleongck
Gan Ying Field of Resonance
Gan Ying: Field of Resonance evokes a terrain where material, memory and gesture converge. Layered washes and vertical striations suggest both erosion and accumulation, echoing the passage of time across a mutable surface.
The ink washes—marked by seepage, stains and interruptions—invites a contemplative reading of presence and absence. Drawing from a conceptual framework of resonance, the work reflects how traces persist, interact and reverberate beyond their origin, transforming the painting into a site of quiet intensity and ongoing dialogue between control and chance.
Research methodology and theoretical framework
In this body of work, my studio practice serves as practical hermeneutics: a means for testing how ideas from Heideggerian and Daoist thought may be embodied through making. Creation methods that embrace spontaneity and responsiveness drawing on Daoist concepts such as zi ran 自然 (naturalness), wu wei 無为 (effortless action), and gan ying 感应 (resonance), which manifest through the flow of qi 气 (vital energy).
Beginning without a preconceived image echoes the Daoist concept of emptiness as a clearing in which form may emerge. These ideas are read alongside Heideggerian notions of Dasein (being-in-the-world), Gelassenheit (releasement) and das Nichts (the nothing), forming a cohesive philosophical basis of the work.
Materially, the project explores how marks, traces and spatial arrangements can register gestures shaped by vibration, echo and resonance. In this way, concepts such as harmony, dissonance and attunement are translated into visible and tactile forms. The studio practice becomes a living field of inquiry—an ongoing dialogue between being, material and thought.
Yong Zi Hui Ployphailin
Zhong Rui
Sara Zahidi
Ow Yeong Li Wen
Natalie Savann Oh
Ye Min Khant
