Preserving Artist Legacy at
Lingkaran in Ipoh, MY
January 13, 2026
interview by Joyce Keokham
edited by Kelly Rogers
For the past year, Beck Yeap has worked to install a permanent exhibition to showcase the work of Nepalese painter, Najar Man Lama, which opened in December 2025 at Lingkaran in Ipoh, Malaysia. Here, Beck speaks with 4N about this new community space, and carrying on the legacy of an artist whose history is intertwined with her family’s multigenerational sawmill.
4N: Tell us about Lingkaran. How did you decide on the name for this space?
Beck Yeap: Lingkaran is situated in a former sawmill called Keong Lik Timber Industries, in Ipoh, Malaysia which is now a multi-functional space. My grandfather started working as a sawmill laborer at 21, which was a very difficult and unstable industry. In 2021, my second uncle, Tan Kai Lek, designed an open-air space in the former sawmill for a third-generation Hainanese white coffee company Sin Yoon Long.
Lingkaran is a Malay word that literally means “circle.” It’s less used colloquially, but I was drawn to the range of use and playfulness of the word. At first, I wanted a word to communicate continuity as the factory’s purpose has continued to evolve. The word can convey something that is inherently cyclical in nature, such as a spiral. Or, in Indonesian, it can be used to describe volcanoes, or a powerful force: lingkaran sesuatu kuasa. So I loved how playful and adaptive it is. I wanted to go for a name that didn't have a strong association, but was still used quite abstractly.
4N: A new component of Lingkaran is the Najar Man Gallery, showing the work of an artist who became an important part of the old sawmill’s history. What is the connection between Najar Man and your family?
BY: Najar Man came to Ipoh, Malaysia as a migrant worker in 2005. In Southeast Asia, Malaysia is one of the countries most reliant on temporary migrant labor. Migrant workers come on a five-year visa that can only be renewed twice. Without a path to permanent residency, there's a lot of undocumented migrant laborers. In terms of the work they do, they call it the “Three D’s” in Malaysia—dirty, dangerous, and demeaning. They're assigned to places within a limited set of industries, often security or heavy industry. Najar Man came to Malaysia at the age of 40, during the Nepalese Civil War, and was assigned to Keong Lik Timber Industries. Migrant laborers in Malaysia are often “invisible.” They do all of the hard labor. Of course in Malaysia, similar to a lot of countries in Southeast Asia, many other places are extracting raw material and migrants have historically been the ones tasked with it.
{archive photo of sawmill}
Unbeknownst to anyone, Najar Man was an artist in Kathmandu, teaching thangka painting after being trained in monasteries. Six months passed after his arrival to Ipoh, and during this time he found a piece of plywood and painted Buddha's enlightenment underneath the Buddha tree. He had access to painting material because one part of the factory makes wood furniture. He hung this painting in his worker's dormitory, above his bed. One day, a factory manager saw it in his room and told my uncle, Tang Kai Lik, because he knew my uncle really appreciated art.
4N: What is the significance of the thangka?
BY: Thangkas are a Tibetan Buddhist artistic practice, typically depicting Buddhist deities and teachings. Traditionally, the thangka is meant to be mounted and rolled up into a scroll. Back in the day, monks themselves would paint Buddhist deities or teaching tools onto cotton canvases. Then they would roll it up and carry it around the Himalayas to spread Buddhism in a visual manner.
The fact that Najar Man continued his artistic practice with thangkas is incredible, because migrant laborers often have to start completely new wherever they end up migrating to, and re-form their identity. From my family’s perspective, if this is Najar Man’s calling, it’s Yuán Fèn–fate–that he ended up at the factory.
4N: Do you think it’s Yuán Fèn that you are now exhibiting Najar Man’s work, after all these years?
BY: Yes, my uncle felt it first for sure. He actually made a promise to Najar Man that he would display his work, which I did not learn until recently.
Lunar New Year 2023 was the first time I consciously remember seeing Najar Man’s thangka. I was making my usual factory rounds, and returned to my grandfather’s office where I used to run around with my cousins as a child. I looked down the hallway leading to his office, and there was one of Najar Man’s thangkas, a Tibetan astrological chart. I was gobsmacked–I had to look up that work to describe the feeling I had when I saw it. My uncle Tan Kai Lek was with me at the time, and he started explaining how it’s filled with so much symbolism, precision, and iconometry.
The artists read Tibetan scripts which explain the deities themselves, then study the ratios for years and years to understand how each deity needs to be drawn, and in what position. The artists must respect the structure of the painting as they are depicting a religious figure, and when a thangka is consecrated, it is believed that the deity enters the painting.
4N: What was it like to finally be able to welcome people to the opening?
BY: TKTKTKTKTKT
4N: What kind of challenges have you faced as you’re working to build out this community?
BY: A lot of the challenges I've had with building community would happen to anyone moving to a different space. What I find so gratifying is that I’m working on a project that is self-initiated. There's no other driver, just me wanting to do it. People can sense that. Having a strong sense of purpose, I've been able to meet others who are like-minded, supportive, and curious.
JK: What are your hopes for Lingkaran, moving forward?
BY: My main focus is how to keep the exhibition and the space financially sustainable. I'm also interested in properly digitally archiving Najar Man’s work and potentially moving it into physical print so that it can travel outside of Malaysia as well.
The recent opening connected me to many other Malaysian collectives and artists, in and outside of Ipoh. There is a lot of excitement around having another space for experimentation in Ipoh, and what programming may happen in the future. There is a lot to figure out. But fingers crossed, the next performance in the works is coming at the end of January!
Learn more about Lingkaran in Ipoh (Lot 59241, Bukit Merah Industrial Estate, Batu 4½, 31450 Ipoh, Perak).