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Dato' Chuah Thean Teng weaves stories of the rustic charms of people, places and the simple home-grown economic activities with the innocence and nostalgia of the bygone years. Occasionally, he comes up with a singular portrait of rural folks, and this piece of a dolled up native is captured with a dose of humour. The emphasis is on the facial features - her thick lips with crimson lipstick, the oval earrings, the well-coiffured hair and the sharply defined eyebrows complementing her wide level eyes.

Teng is the world-acknowledged founder of Batik Painting and he never looked back after his break-through exhibition in 1955. His paintings, Two Of A Kind (1968) and Tell You A Secret (1987), took on iconic status when selected for Unicef greeting cards. He studied at the Xiamen (Amoy) Art Institute in China. He was honoured with a retrospective exhibition by the National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur in 1965 and by the Penang State Art Gallery in 1994. The Penang State Government conferred him the title “Dato” in 1998 and he received the Live Heritage Award in 2005. The National Art Gallery gave him a memorial exhibition in 2009. His major works are on show at Yahong Art Gallery in Batu Ferrringhi in Penang, which is a veritable museum also showcasing the batik works of his sons and grandsons.