Artist Cheng Yen Peng maintains that she only knew her painting 'Alksnaabknuaunmo' was removed after the awards ceremony and fumes that the National Visual Arts Gallery (BSVN or Balai Seni) lied about it.

In a statement punctuated with exclamation marks for emphasis, Cheng swears that neither Balai Seni, nor any other related party, had ever informed her that they would remove her artwork from the Kuala Lumpur gallery a week ago.

"I, Cheng Yen Pheng would like to state here clearly that even since my work ‘Alksnaabknuaunmo’ delivered to BSVN in participating Bakat Muda Sezaman (Young Contemporaries) 2013 competition, none of the chief jury nor the secretariat Bakat Muda had notified me by verbal, telephone notification, phone text messages, e-mail or in writing about my work will be or may be or has already been removed," her press statement says.

Balai Seni said yesterday that it removed Cheng's painting and another artwork by Izat Arif Saiful Bahri from the gallery because it "distressed" visitors.

However, it added, the head of the jury and the competition secretariat, as well as the artists, were informed of this decision.

Retract statement, Balai Seni told

"Due to the dissatisfaction of the organiser removing my work without informing me, I decided to stand in front of the empty wall (where my work was displayed before) and protest!" Cheng said.

She demanded that Balai Seni retracts its statement "to restore the whole truth (of) the entire event!"

"It is not only a big lie, but it also denies the necessity of my protest!" she said.

Cheng said that as the highest official agency in the local visual arts scene, Balai Seni had shown that it was “unprofessional, irresponsible and disrespectful towards participating artists and their artworks!”

Her painting bears the words "ABU = ASHES." ABU, while meaning ashes, also stands for 'Anything But Umno'.

Before the general election last year, the letters ABU had been spray painted around Malaysia in protest of Umno hegemony.

The other art installation removed, by Izat Arif, featured a T-shirt printed with the Arabic letters 'Fa' and 'Qof'.

The two artworks were removed ahead of the awards ceremony for the competition, graced by the Tourism and Culture Minister Mohd Nazri Aziz.