An Eagle Fights Free

Born in Western Malaysia of Chinese parents, Hock-Aun is a graduate of Tan Guan Hin Chinese Painting School & Glasgow School of Art.

His painting shows a marrying of the spontaneity and expressive freedom found in the most highly prized of T'ang calligraphic masters to the colours and high-tech materials of modern western art. Teh's work is often classified in the West as abstract expressionism. But if it is, it's abstract expressionism with a considerable difference. For though born in Malaysia and working in Glasgow, he is by background and upbringing essentially Chinese and was carefully schooled in calligraphy.

What Teh is after is a harnessing into precise tandem of both physical and emotional energy, so that he can communicate the essence of an experience in a moment, in which feeling and memory, sight, sound, smell and touch all play a part. For Teh brings into his paintings a kind of self expression. He uses, as he puts it, his whole body in what he does, and often works, as his calligraphic forebears did, very fast: channeling the force of feeling and memory, like an athelete, into a fresh expression of itself, onto the canvas or paper in front of him.

Teh's main source of inspiration are the experiences of his native Scotland and his regular travels around the world, particularly to the Far East. He passes through life as an observer, absorbing different cultures, traditions and ideas, separating out 'the good bits' from 'the bad', then bringing together what he wants to keep. The result is a different way of looking at things, a combining of cultures, of the East and of the West. He throws all of this at us through his work.

In 2017, Hock-Aun's paintings were included in the first Kuala Lumpur Biennale and in 2019, he was the subject of a solo show at National Art Gallery of Malaysia.

Public Collections include:
The National Gallery of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur
National Art Museum of China, Beijing
Chinese People's Political Consultative Congress, Beijing
The Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow
The Dick Institute, Kilmarnock Art Gallery & Museum
Edinburgh City Arts Centre, Edinburgh
Scottish Arts Council