About the exhibition
The Back Room invites you to Innocent Bystander, the second solo exhibition by Malaysia-born, China-based artist Ong Hieng Fuong. The exhibition collects several new paintings made between 2024–2025, when Hieng had just graduated with his Bachelor’s from the China Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing and was starting his Master’s at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in Chongqing.
The paintings record, with a heavy touch of dry humour, the observations and experiences that make up everyday life for the artist, living between China and Malaysia. Viewers may amuse themselves trying to figure out which painting subject was observed where — the man squatting on a bollard while smoking must surely be in China, while the immigration clerk on her phone in front of a “No Handphone” sign must surely be in Malaysia. Though the paintings don’t make a pointed statement about either country, Hieng’s compositions capture subtle cultural nuances between the two countries — scenes that are characteristic of daily life there but would never be represented in an official way.
Amidst the variety of weird and wonderful scenarios in Hieng’s paintings, the artist himself is positioned as an “innocent bystander”, a witness standing by the side whom chance happened to make audience to these random events. The mere act of living and going about his day is ripe for inspiration. In his paintings we can make out the elements that make a place and culture unique, but we also enter into the perspective of an individual with a unique relationship to his world. Through Hieng’s eyes, the world seems neither bleak nor wonderful, nor matter-of-fact… The paintings recreate prosaic scenes with an attention to detail that betrays a genuine fascination with the world, yet undercut by a dry line of irony that is expressed in the grotesque or blank-eyed expressions on some of his subjects.
Selected for the exhibition poster visual is the artist’s self-portrait at 30, bundled up indoors during a blue Chongqing winter. In the corner, we see another blue scene, a painting within a painting, the WIP of Shalimar Saloon, which depicts the artist’s young cousin having his head shaved in a Malaysian-Indian barbershop with psychedelic interiors. This dedication to memory and the painting routine brightens up an otherwise grey existence and transforms the continuation of mere life into something lasting and meaningful.
About the artist
Ong Hieng Fuong (b. 1995, Selangor) is an emerging artist who is currently pursuing his Master’s in Fine Art at the printmaking department of the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in Chongqing, having previously graduated with his Bachelor’s from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. Hieng hails from Tanjong Sepat, a small fishing town where the pace of life is much slower and where he got to experience all aspects of daily life to their fullest, experiences and observations that, despite his move to China, are still his core source of inspiration.
Hieng’s work has been included in group exhibitions locally and internationally, including the ILHAM Art Show 2025 (ILHAM Gallery, Kuala Lumpur), Narrating Localities (2025, University Malaysia Sabah), Art Jakarta (2024, Indonesia), and ART SG (2024, Singapore). He has been selected for the UOB Painting of the Year Award several times, winning Bronze (Established) in 2025, Gold (Established) in 2019, and the Grand Prize (Emerging) in 2017. He was an artist-in-residence at the Rimbun Dahan Southeast Asian Art Residency for six months in 2021. His debut solo exhibition was That day, I was sketching on the street (2022, The Back Room, KL) followed by Innocent Bystander (2026, The Back Room, KL).
Installation
Coming soon
Artworks
Coming soon