Wan Soon Kam’s paintings are based on natural scenes that often include foliage and streams. They are scenes that would ordinarily be unnoticed, except for the artist’s rendering. He composes his paintings by selecting scenes that are commonplace, and exalting these to a monumental level.

Wan has developed a personal visual vocabulary for landscape painting. Mostly working in watercolour and acrylics, he uses a monochromatic earth-toned palette comprising burnt and raw siennas and umbers, yellow ochre and deep green. Disciplined and demanding, Wan works with a strong sense of the need to create beautiful images. His treatment of water surfaces makes use of the white ground of the watercolour paper. Using translucent washes and accents, the effect is reminiscent of Chinese landscape paintings. In this work, a few birds fly over the stream, adding motion to the quiet landscape.

Another painting by Wan Soon Kam in the Singtel collection, Stream I (1990) is done in similar style and format.