Emelia Ong Thiran received her BFA from the University of Bridgeport (USA), her MA from Universiti Malaya and later her PhD in Art History from University Sains Malaysia. She has been teaching design, visual art studies and art history in numerous art colleges while freelancing as a graphic designer. She is the author of Living Art: The Inspired Lives of 14 Malaysian Artists & their Art Practice (2020). She quit full-time teaching to pursue painting seriously in 2019. Currently, she lives in Kuala Lumpur with her husband and two kids.
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Creative Values to live by daily…
Connect to a Higher Power Art making is not just a physical, intellectual and emotional experience but also a spiritual one.
Cultivate a Creative life Seek out ways of living that nurture (rather than stifle) creativity.
Trust the Process Focus on the journey and not just the end result.
Support one another. Support each other’s journey to live a creative life.
Play and learn! The more we play, the more we learn and grow.
E X H I B I T I O N S
2024 Interwoven Realities. Group Show. HARTA Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur.
2023 Beauty in Elements. Group Show. Menara Ken, Kuala Lumpur.
2023 Affordable Art Fair Singapore. The Art People Gallery. F1 Pit Building, Singapore.
2022 ‘RHB Art with Heart 2022’. Group Show. Bangsar Shopping Centre, Kuala Lumpur.
2022 ‘Works by Emy Thiran’. Solo Exhibition. Komunal, Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur.
2022 ‘Art Moments Jakarta’. Virtual Art Exhibition, The Art People Gallery.
2021 ‘Malaysian Art Ecosystem Festival’. World Trade Center, Kuala Lumpur.
2021. ‘Abstracted Reality-A Celebration of Self’ Virtual Group Show. The Art People Gallery, Malaysia.
2021. ‘Inspirational Art in Mixed Media’ Juried Virtual Exhibition. The Healing Power of Art & Artists, Manhattan Arts International, New York.
S E L E C T E D P U B L I C A T I O N S
Living Art: The Inspired Lives of 14 Malaysian Artists and their Art Practice. Penang: Areca Books, 2020.
‘Book Review: Dolores Wharton, Contemporary Artists of Malaysia: A Biographic Survey’. Narratives in Malaysian Art. Vol. 4. Kuala Lumpur: RogueArt, 2019.
‘Teachers and Students Speak: Alumni of Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts; Sulaiman Esa and Khatijah Sulaiman; Chung Chen Sun; Choong Kam Kow; T. K. Sabapathy’ (Published Interviews). Yong, Beverly, Khairuddin et.al. Eds. Infrastructures. Narratives in Malaysian Art. Vol. 3. Kuala Lumpur: RogueArt. (337-390).
‘Expressions of Hybridity as Strategy for Malayan Nationalism: Selected Artworks in Modern Malayan Art.’ Wacana Seni: Journal of Arts Discourse. Penang: Universiti Sains Malaysia. Vol. 14. (co-author Izmer Ahmad).
‘Hybridity as Expressions of a Diaspora Community: Selected Nanyang Artists’. Malaysian Journal of Performing and Visual Arts. University of Malaya. Vol. 1 (1). (co-author Izmer Ahmad).
‘The Nanyang Style: Different Viewpoints and Contexts.’ Nanyang: A Private Selling Exhibition. Kuala Lumpur: Henry Butcher Art Auctioneers, 2014.
‘The Nanyang Artists: Eclectic Expressions of the South Seas.’ Khairuddin and Yong, ed. Imagining Identities: Narratives in Malaysian Art. Vol. 1. Kuala Lumpur: RogueArt. 59-70, 2012.
‘Sagmeister's Tips for the Student Designer.’ STAR Newspaper. Oct 27, 2012.
R A D I O
“Horizons of Hybridity”. Night School. BFM 89.9, The Business Station. 17 Nov 2016.
S E L E C T E D P A P E R P R E S E N T A T I O N S & T A L K S
“Expressions of Resistance: Social Realist artworks of the Yiyanhui and the Equator Art Society,” 16 - 18 Sep 2016. SOAS, University of London, Association of Southeast Asian Studies (ASEASUK), United Kingdom.
“Hybridity as Expressions of a (Dis/Re) located community: Selected Artworks of the Nanyang Artists In Malaya”, 2nd International Congress of Numanities, 25 - 29 May 2015, International Semiotics Institute, Kaunas, Lithuania.
"Sino-Malayan Identities in Modern Malayan art during the 1950s and 60s", 23rd International Conference of Historians of Asia 2014 (IAHA), 23 - 27 Aug 2014, Centre for General Studies, University Utara Malaysia.
"Expressions of Hybridity as Strategy for Malaysian Nationalism: Selected Artworks in Modern Malayan Art.", 9th Singapore Graduate Forum on Southeast Asian Studies, 25 - 27 Jun 2014, Asia Research Institute, Singapore.
"Ways of Seeing: Paintings of the Nanyang Artists.", Association for Asian Studies and International Convention of Asian Scholars Conference. (AAS-ICAS 2011), 31 Mar - 3 Apr 2011, Association of Asian Studies and International Convention of Asian Scholars. University of Hawaii, Hawaii.
“Ramayana in the Visual Art Forms from a Malaysian Perspective”, ASEAN Cultural Heritage & Identities. International Conference, 3 - 7 Aug 2015, Fine Arts Department of Thailand, Bangkok, Thailand.