Rainforest Trees

I was deep inside the rainforest when I stopped, looked up, and let the trees become everything — three trunks standing close together, vines slipping down between them like loose handwriting, and behind it all that extraordinary green light filtering through layers of leaves you can never quite count. Working with oils, I worked the trunks in warm chestnut and chocolate browns so they would sit forward against the high acid greens and chartreuse of the canopy, and let the vines stay loose and gestural — quick downward lines that keep your eye moving the way light actually moves in there.

Rainforests aren't quiet, they're full of small ticking sounds and the constant brushing of leaves, but they have a kind of green hush that settles into you the moment you stand still. I wanted you to feel that — the cool air, the upward pull, the sense of being held by something much larger and older than yourself.

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Min Leong is a painter born in Kuching, Malaysia and based in Sydney. His work centres on landscape from Malaysian forests to Australian coastlines. His paintings demonstrate a confident, expressive approach to colour — often pushing beyond naturalistic palettes into saturated purples, pinks, and oranges that capture the intense light of the Australian environment.

Leong gravitates toward subjects that emphasise the vertical and the immersive: towering eucalypts seen from below, dense rainforest canopies, and expansive vistas from elevated viewpoints. His work conveys a direct engagement with place and an interest in how light transforms the familiar into something vivid and heightened.