Chung Chen Sun is a renowned calligrapher and painter. His ancestral home is Meixian, Guangdong, and was born in 1935 in a scholarly family in Malacca, Malaya (old name for Malaysia). His paternal family has had a long working history in the cultural and education-related industry and since young, he was already exposed to the influence of the motherland’s traditional culture. He graduated from Singapore Nanyang School of Fine Arts in 1955. In terms of ideology, he was inspired by the father of Nanyang art education Mr. Lim Hak Tai; in art, he was deeply influenced by “Nanyang Art” masters such as Chen Wen Hsi, Chen Chong Swee, and Cheong Soo Pieng. He founded the Malaysian Institute of Arts in 1967 and served as the principal for 32 years. In the early 1980s, he was serving the rotating presidency of the Asian Pacific Conference on Arts Education (ASPACAE) and also was the president of the International Contemporary Ink Painting Association (ICIPA). In 1982, he was elected as the president of the Malaysian Chinese Cultural Society and in 1986, he graduated with a Master’s degree in Public Administration from the University of San Francisco. In 1988, at the Chinese government’s invitation, he went back to mainland China for the first time. Since then, in collaboration with China, three international modern design and art colleges have been established in Yunnan, Inner Mongolia, and Hunan. At the turn of this century, he founded the Malaysia MSC International College (Media, Art & Design). Chung Chen Sun has been in the art arena for more than 50 years. He is committed to modern art education and promotes the modernization of ink wash painting. His works are widely collected by enterprises and institutions, professional art galleries, museums, and other institutions all over the world.

Chung Chen Sun, the assessment of the value of his creations is demonstrated from three aspects: artistic value, collection value, and market value.

I. The artistic value of Chung Chen Sun’s creation

1. Chung Chen Sun’s early works (about 1952-1980) exemplify a deep commitment to preserving traditional Chinese art, reflecting his adherence to cultural heritage despite external pressures. During this period, his creations remained rooted in Chinese traditions, both ideologically and technically, even while living in the Nanyang region, where Eastern and Western ideologies collided. Like Chinese artists Huang Binhong and Pan Tianshou during the Cultural Revolution, Chung did not succumb to prevailing political currents; instead, he steadfastly upheld traditional Chinese culture. Huang and Pan’s works during this time represented a resistance to ideological shifts in Mainland China, while Chung’s art reflected the resilience of overseas Chinese artists, emphasizing the integration of Chinese culture within a global context amid Western colonial expansion. Chung’s unwavering belief in the vitality of Chinese culture, even in the face of diminishing Eastern influence, illustrates the global continuity of Chinese heritage. His early works highlight the importance of preserving traditional aesthetics and passing them down through generations, reinforcing the idea that Chinese culture, despite external challenges, remains strong and unbroken.

2. Chung Chen Sun's mid to recent stage’s works (from 1980 to the present) reflect both the preservation of tradition and significant innovation within ink wash painting. His creations blend regional Eastern culture with national characteristics, marking a crucial moment in Chinese cultural development.

His early studies of traditional culture, spanning five thousand years, helped him revolutionize ink wash painting in his later years. His middle-stage works are distinguished by unique creative techniques and styles, representing a key integration of diverse global cultures. Sun's contributions stand as a monumental milestone in the evolution of Chinese art.

The creative techniques are mainly reflected in:

(1) On the dots and lines, Chung Chen Sun inherited the traditional static dot and line technique and had a breakthrough formation of unrestrained and natural dynamic, and the combination of dynamic and static dots and lines, such as “The Glory of Kings” (F1) and so on.

(2) In terms of brushwork, Chung Chen Sun inherited the traditional fusion and refined brushwork of ink wash painting. In addition, he consciously formed the “rough and unrestrained” brushstrokes to outline the solid state of the rocks, and his uniquely “Chen Sun’s shading” to “shade the texture of the rock with charred ink”. An example is “Chen Sun’s Playing with His Rock”    (F2) and so on.

(3) In terms of color characteristics, Chung Chen Sun portrayed the natives with the nearly Asian complexion ocher color, which conveys the intrinsic quintessence that is far away from modern civilization.

The wood grain- like ochre block surface is the general technique of “Chen Sun’s shading” in expressing the theme of modest life and it is a flexible development of the “Chen Sun’s shading” technique.

(4) In terms of color composition, Chung Chen Sun inherited and also had a breakthrough from the conventional systemized color composition concept. Contrary to the tradition, he used the image of “Tai Chi” to imitate the image of “painting Dao”, “Who knows how white attracts, yet always keeps himself within black’s shade, the pattern of humility displayed”, and it is sparkling with the colors of humanistic spirit; such as “Benevolence” and “Benevolent Dao” Series of works (F3). Apart from that, Chung Chen Sun has broken through the traditional concept of composition, such as the “Forget about the Atomic Bomb Outside the Door, I am a Drunken Immortal” (F4), the composition is more towards the upper part than the lower part, and the connotation is positioned from far to near, from top to bottom. He left a large area below to highlight the directionality of the space. Chung Chen Sun’s self-invented plan-space directional composition has a strong three-dimensional effect, breaking through the traditional Eastern and Western compositional concepts, making it one of its kind. Chung Chen Sun inherited and also broke through the tradition, created a perfect form and perfected the spiritual connotation.

(5) On the geometric block surface level, Chung Chen Sun used the combination of “squares” and “circles”; and implicitly applied the triangular geometric block surface, the idea is to highlight the process of multi- racial integration, for his socially diverse cultures, transforming from the waiting to be integrated to a stable state of accommodating differences. Examples like the “Hens & Roosters” (F5), “Galloping Horses” (F6) (F7), and so on. The geometric block faces of “squares”, “circles” and “edges” and composite block faces are another important component and one of the distinctive modern art languages of Chung Chen Sun. It is also the objective reflection of the integration and convergence of modern Malaysia’s multi-racial national cultures, which makes it one of the most outstanding regional characteristics of oriental modern art.