Galeri Seni Mutiara

Christopher Dally

My name is Christopher Dally and I am a painter. I paint simple pictures which bring me satisfaction and which I hope might strike a sympathetic chord with viewers. The paintings have no inherent message. I have had no formal training as a painter and this brings both advantages and problems but I have been painting for some sixty years and have got the hang of it.

I am 76 years old. I went to sea as an apprentice in the merchant navy at the age of seventeen; this experience has been crucial to my life. Since leaving the sea I have lived and worked in Africa, in Uganda, Kenya, and the Congo, and in South East Asia, in Singapore, Malaysia, Korea but mainly in Indonesia, where I lived for twenty-four immensely happy years. It is the ambience of Indonesia that has most significantly affected my paintings. I exhibited in Indonesia with other artists but this has not affected my style which I would describe essentially as being realistic but with a touch of fantasy.

In addition to painting I have, over the years, designed and (usually) painted over 50 stage sets for theatrical productions ranging from Puppets (Alice Through the Looking Glass) to full scale musicals (Sound of Music, The Mikado).

My wife and I now live between England and Penang. We are here under the Malaysia My Second Home programme and being here has brought us back to what we have come to regard as our natural habitat. England is where our grandchildren live, and they are the most important element of our lives and so I dedicate this, my first solo exhibition to them, to Ajsa, Shaams, Alys, and Tabitha Dally.