Hybridity as Expressions of a Diasporic Community: Selected Nanyang Artists

This paper examines the paintings of selected Nanyang artists produced during the 1950s and 60s in Malaya/Malaysia to demonstrate how hybridity emerges as a way of expressing their position as a diasporic community. It proposes the concept of “play” as a way of understanding their formalistic experimentation on Chinese and Western approaches to art. However, the notion of hybridity refers to more than purely formal artistic considerations but also refers to issues of cultural identity. Their artistic considerations reflected wider concerns about home and belonging and what it means to be part of a Chinese diasporic community living in Malaya.