HANNA Cheriyan Varghese’s death has taken an original and innovative talent off the Malaysian art scene. She was a leading visual artist, renowned for expressing her Christian faith and spirited thoughts in lively imagery.

She was, from the beginning, involved with new and exacting work in different media such as oil, acrylic, batik, metal-tooling and wood-block printing. She was passionately dedicated to exploring new forms and courageously inventive in her painting, up until the weeks before she died in Kuala Lumpur on June 12, aged 71.

MASTER TOUCH: Hanna at work in the US in 2007

She returned in 1958 to begin her career in teaching. After two years with a government school in Sabak Bernam, she married George Varghese, then an assistant lecturer at University of Malaya, in January 1960, who she met five years earlier at a friend’s wedding. She was the bridesmaid and he, the best man.

She spent the next seven years at the Assunta Primary School followed by four more years with the Saint Anne's kindergarten, both in Petaling Jaya. Hanna quit teaching after 14 years in the profession to concentrate on her growing family — daughters Georgina, Johanna and Sharmin.

She returned to teaching intermittently before stopping for good in her 40s to lend more time and meaning to art in Malaysian and Asian Christian art circles. This brought the best out of her creative and natural abilities. The Last Supper, The Good Samaritan, The Moment of Truth and Calming the Storm, to name a few, are considered “master paintings”.

These were essentially paintings with acrylic on canvas and batik-dyeing in fabric. About batik, Hanna has been quoted as saying: “There is an element of surprise and wonder in dyeing. The colour is deep when the fabric is wet. When it dries it takes on a lighter shade. Finally, the result of colour on colour is amazing when a new hue emerges.”

She began to strongly express her faith, spiritual thoughts and experiences with lively biblical images. Inspired by the artwork of many Asian Christian artists in the Image magazine, Hanna had her own work featured in too. She became a coordinator of the Malaysian Christian Artists Fellowship and was vice-president of the Asian Christian Art Association from 1998 until 2003.

Those who have seen her paintings will remember them for their freshness in expressing Christian concerns in an Asian context. Some of her works were exhibited in Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and in a few European countries.

She aslo served the Overseas Ministries Study Centre (OMSC) at New Haven, Connecticut, in the United States as resident artist during the 2006-07 academic year and her paintings were exhibited at Yale Institute of Sacred Music, Princeton Theological Seminary and the OMSC.

It was while Hanna was in the US that she was diagnosed with cancer, in April, 2007. She returned home to continue treatment. Throughout her illness she was still working on her paintings and designing theme posters for important Christian conferences in Asia.

During her illness, her husband of 49 years, George, now a retired professor, was her prime caregiver in the absence of their three daughters, who live abroad. She is also survived by five grandchildren.

A memorial for Hanna will be held at St Mary's Orthodox Syrian Cathedral at Jalan Tun Sambanthan Satu in Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur, at 3pm on Saturday. A selection of her recent artwork entitled “Reflections on God’s Redeeming Love” will be launched after the prayers.

Her artwork can be viewed on her website at www.hanna-artwork.com.