Mr. Chung Chen Sun is an accomplished Southeast Asian artist with global influence. He was born in Malaysia, but regardless of his influences in Malaysia, China, or globally, they have made him an important figure in these regions and beyond in the fields of art creation, promotion of ink painting, art education, and art popularization activities.

When I was in the University, Mr. Liu Wenxi, who was the dean of the department, brought a gentleman into the classroom one day and introduced to us that this gentleman was a pathfinder in ink painting. He is an important integrationist who inherited both traditional Chinese ink painting and combined with modern Western art, playing an important role in promoting the art exchange globally by the name of Mr. Chung Chen Sun. When I first met Mr. Chung, he was very poised and polite and left a deep impression on me from his first conversations and exchanges with us in the classroom. Afterwards, the whole class observed the creative process of Mr. Chung's ink painting. In our department’s office, he was using a brush and drew a galloping horse in a freestyle manner. The way he drew it was very carefree and audaciously, and the ink painting was very lively. At the time, we were just in the lower grades and were learning about sketching, croquis, and styling, and back then, we were still not familiar with ink painting. It was the first time that we saw his unrestrained performance in ink painting and we were very impressed that this man from Nanyang who is upholding the tradition is of Chinese origin. Therefore, he inspired us a lot by showing us the embodiment of the profound Chinese Confucianism knowledge of how to behave and do things, yet also able to master the Chinese ink painting adeptly and confidently, and with his countless years of skill, was able to draw a galloping horse for us without any drafting by simply expressing his idea on a blank piece of paper.

Decades have passed, and by looking back at Mr. Chung’s paintings from the present perspective, they have these characteristics. First of all, he was born and raised outside China, in a country that has combined Chinese and Western values and placed equal importance on Chinese tradition and Western education. Therefore, his works have the genes of both Chinese and Western cultures. They consist of the sketches of Western paintings and the Chinese traditional emphasis on brush, ink & formulas, and the emphasis of “see with eyes and learn by heart”. The tools he used were traditional Chinese ink painting tools and when he used them, they were full of the traditional Chinese spirit. His style is that with just a single brush stroke he can produce any kind of freehand brushwork, but the composition of the painting, the combination of visual metamorphosis, and the structure of the painting are very much blended with the Western modernist expressionism characteristic and reference in it. The form is very much pure Chinese ink and freehand brushwork, accompanied with the splash-ink and outline techniques, combined with its composition and flamboyant expression of a Western painting. This combination of Chinese and Western styles are simple for him and he manages to blend the essence of Chinese and Western very well, so this skill alone has made him one of the best modern ink painting artists around.

In addition to creating a huge number of his ink paintings, he has also made significant importance in education. There is no doubt that he deserves to be known as the "Father of Malaysia Modern Art Education" and the "Father of Malaysia Modern Ink Painting". Not only has he promoted his modern (art) education and ink painting in Malaysia but during the 40 years of reform and opening up, he has had frequent connections with mainland China. He has founded many Chinese-foreign cooperative art education institutions, five art colleges to be exact. These five art colleges have played a significant role in promoting art education and creation, as well as the social popularization of art and the expansion of the social visibility of art in the local art education landscape, the development of Chinese culture combining with the Western culture. At the same time when he founded these educational institutions, he played the role of a teacher himself and brought up many outstanding artists. He continued to play an important influence in Malaysia, China, and globally.

Over the past few decades, Mr. Chung and I have met on many occasions, and we have continuously exchanged experiences in art creation, art education, and art organization activities. We have had very enjoyable co-operations and exhibitions together. He is a man of profound humanistic sensibilities, therefore, regardless of topics such as the development of a legacy, teaching and exchanging of ideas, advancing the development of younger generations, promoting the popularization of social art, development of Chinese art after China's reform and opening up-- both of us have a lot in common in those subject matters. When I was in school, he came into my life as a teacher and in the following decades, we have built a good relationship between us. I should say that every encounter of ours was a very pleasant experience and now Mr. Chung has become an important and indispensable figure that played the role of a teacher and a friend who is well respected in promoting the innovation of ink painting and art activities in China-foreign art creation arena. He is not only my teacher but also a very close friend. Therefore, during my tenure at the China National Academy of Painting, I hired 5% of world-renowned artists and Mr. Chung was hired as a researcher among them and he became the foreigner outside China and the West, the Malaysian representative who hailed from the region where East and West meets, and continues to play his role even today. Now Mr. Chung not only has students all over the world but his paintings and education also bear fruits. When I look back on his decades of interactions with us, apart from feeling joyful, I also have a lot of admiration for his relentless effort in creating and promoting art education despite his age. Once again I wish to express my gratitude and hope that Mr. Chung is blessed with good health and can create more masterpieces and make greater contributions in advancing the development of art in the world.