Chong Kim Chiew’s practice focuses on the idea of the nation as an ideological, political and aesthetic construct. His approach is to deconstruct, reworking visual objects that claim an objective knowledge of nations, borders, and value (like maps and banknotes) to unearth their tenuous logic. In Scape with Map, Chong presents a composition of a seascape. A horizontal line divides the sky and the sea, and texture is built below where the sea could be interpreted as a strip of land. The sky section is notated with a map of the South China Sea, made illegible by the artist’s interventions. Chong deliberately retains traces of writings and drawings on the canvas, incessantly pouring acrylic onto the canvas, painting intersecting lines, and then repeating the steps. Hence, traces of the previous step will be erased and covered by layers of colour in a process of deliberate obfuscation. These indistinct layers of lines and colours come to symbolise the complex geographical and political tensions that encircle the South China Sea.