Make Hock Aun Teh’s art accessible to all in Taiping

Taiping is my hometown. It is where I was brought up, where my love for art began, and filled with the memories and experiences of my childhood that continue to live with me.

In 1970, I left Taiping to study in the Department of Drawing and Painting at the Glasgow School of Art. After graduating, I chose to remain in Europe and pursue my dream of becoming a professional artist — to make art not simply as a passion, but as a way of life, earning my living through the creation of my work.

Over the years, my artistic journey has taken me far from Taiping. I have travelled, exhibited and established my life and career over the world. Yet Taiping has never ceased to be my home. Many people in my hometown and in Malaysia have followed my artistic journey through newspapers, magazines, television, and social media, but very few have had the opportunity to stand before my original works and experience them first hand.

The Hock Aun Teh Gallery of Modern Art is my way of changing that. It is a private, intimate gallery — perhaps one of a kind in Malaysia — dedicated exclusively to my own paintings, drawings, sculptures and other works of art. Rather than creating a conventional public museum, I wanted to bring my art back to the place where my journey began, and bring it closer to my own people.

For me, this gallery is not merely a collection of artworks. It is a connection between my people and me, between my past and my present, and between Taiping and the wider world in which my artistic life has unfolded. Above all, I see it as my small cultural contribution to Taiping and to Malaysia: a way of giving something back to the community that shaped the person and artist I have become.

By Hock Aun Teh (2026)