Social realist master Chua Mia Tee’s daughter Chua Yang traces influences to mother Lee Boon Ngan

SINGAPORE – Walking through the halls of the National Gallery Singapore, where her father’s paintings have cemented their place as cornerstones in the Singapore canon, Dr Chua Yang says conspiratorially: “Actually, my artistic career has mirrored mum’s more than dad’s.”

One would think that the gynaecologist-photographer would reach easily for associations with her more famous father, social realist painter Chua Mia Tee, 94, whose iconic paintings include the muscular National Language Class (1959) and the portrait of Singapore’s first president Yusof Ishak on currency notes.

But a lifelong interest in women, together with a parallel late pursuit of art, put her sympathies firmly in her mother Lee Boon Ngan’s camp.

The late Lee, the primary caregiver for her two children, never had the luxury of painting with the single-mindedness of her husband.

The artist, who died in 2017 aged 78 following a year-long illness, finally had a dedicated exhibition at The Private Museum in 2025.

In her, Dr Chua – who is on call around the clock and had to postpone this interview by two hours after being called to deliver a baby – recognises a kindred determination to carve out time on top of a demanding day job.

She says: “She spent most of her career as a mother, and then only when we needed her less did she find time to hone her skills, and her artistry blossomed. So many people were wowed by her flower paintings when they were displayed on the walls in such a beautiful manner.”

Exacting lessons

Dr Chua, 57, is a street photographer with two photo books to her name. Both are female-centric projects – the first paired mothers and daughters in healthcare, while the second focused on inspiring women in Singapore.

“I have a natural advantage. I speak to women by profession and connect with women quickly and easily,” she says.

There is a grounded, no-nonsense vibe about her, and she rejects easy, illusory creative links. Her father recruiting her as a child to help with typesetting on the dining table, while he was still working in advertising, was “probably more useful for my medical career as a surgeon from all the dexterity training, than a development in artistry”.

The reticent maestro also never formally taught his children art, fitting with a more general refusal to accept disciples. Dr Chua theorises: “Deep down inside, he’s so obsessive about it that he would probably be heartbroken if he taught students who were just casual in their attempts to learn. It would frustrate him if he agreed to take on a student who studied for three months and then moved on.”

Still, osmosis was inevitable. Dr Chua toyed with the camera while left to her own devices during sketching outings with her father in Chinatown and along the Singapore River.

Her all-important artistic eye was also attuned through spontaneous – and exacting – art critique lessons. Not even illustrations in textbooks were spared.

“He would say: ‘Look at this portrayal of the shadow. If the lights were coming from here, the shadow would never be this way. If the sun is that low, the shadow would never be this short.’ There was a strong awareness of what is logical, what is scientifically possible.”

She has been hooked on Leica cameras since 2016, and currently owns five. The one that hangs around her neck most days the moment she exits her clinic is the M10-R.

More recently, she has added to her arsenal an instant camera which she takes on her medical missions to rural areas in Mongolia and India – a red limited-edition Leica SOFORT 2 with cartoons on it. It allows her to hand out portraits to the kids and women she photographs.

Being a woman street photographer persuades people to let their guard down. Dr Chua says: “They don’t see me as trying to be funny.”

On the advantage of having a famous artist father for her artistic career, she is clear-eyed, given that her first solo exhibition at Leica Galerie Singapore in 2021 was a private look at the more enfeebled Cultural Medallion recipient and widower. It has shaped Dr Chua’s artistic statement, which refuses to shy from ageing.

“There is such beauty and character in the lines of the face and in grey and white hairs,” she says. “Photographing kids comes naturally to everybody, but then come a certain age, the whole family is devoid of their photos.”

A third generation

Dr Chua’s niece Ernestine Chua, an academic coordinator at London’s The Art Academy, is the other artist in the family. In a brief Zoom interview, the 27-year-old recalls spying on her grandparents in her early years and noting their different approaches to painting.

When Ms Chua was 15, Lee sat her down over three to four days for her first sessions of formal training – the painting of a green apple that began with questions such as “Why the green, and not the red apple?” and “Should it be a fresh or softer one in the basket?”

Ms Chua says: “My grandmother was quite specific about the details over each mark made. My grandfather is a lot more macro. He would lean over to help with mixing colours, but also ask how a piece of music would make me feel as I work.”

Her pedigree is mostly unknown on the London art scene, where up-and-coming contemporary artists occupy the limelight.

Having left Singapore quite early for studies in Hong Kong, where she also pursued design work, she muses: “My peace with practising fine art was protected by not having the pressure to follow exactly in my grandparents’ footsteps. But it is good to know that I have a secret weapon.”