The Art of Khik Weng Keat

  The Carnivore Club , acrylic on canvas, 2026. 16" X 24" In his first ever painting on a black canvas, the artist blends prehistoric life and anachronism into a fun picture of several top carnivore dinosaurs dressed up at a "club house".  The dinosaurs are dressed in Victorian-era hats while the Tyrannosaurus is wearing a crown, signifying its nickname as the "king of dinosaurs". The club house is set in a stony, cave-like background with a table inside of the sculpture of a dinosaur. The painting is inspired by the " Iguanodon  Dinner" on New Year's Eve in 1853, a dinner banquet held by sculptor Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, who created the famous archaic dinosaur sculptures at Crystal Palace Park in London, and attended by Sir Richard Owen, the creator of the word "dinosaur". The banner reads "when dinosaurs ruled the Earth" in Latin.

Heavenly Cycles , acrylic on canvas, 2026. 24" X 24" (61 cm X 61 cm) Fascinated by animals in a young age, the artist combines the design of a clock tower with the concept of Chinese Zodiac animals in a cycle around the clock, a reference to the Earthly Branches timekeeping system where the 12 signs of the Chinese Zodiac are asigned to the hours of a day. In real life, the Zodiac signs are assigned to every two hours in the 24-hour system (e.g. the hours of the Rat range from 11:00 PM to 1:00 AM, while the hours of the Horse range from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM). The Earthly Branches timekeeping system is part of the Chinese 60-year cycle and was historically used alongside water clocks and sundials, and are fundamental in the Ba Zi (Four Pillars of Destiny) in Feng Shui and Chinese astrology to determine the hour, day, month, and year of birth, as well as the most suitable times of the day for activities such as weddings, offerings and other spiritual practices. The Earthly Branch...