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Extract from "Masterpieces from the National Art Gallery of Malaysia"

《Journey》2001　Mixed media construction　143cmx 115cm

Born: 1972          

Education:

1991 - School of Art & Design, University Technology MARA (UiTM), Shah Alam

　　Mohd. Suhaimi Tohid’s Journey has a mechanistic, factory produced feel about it and this has been brought about by this young artist’s mode of treatment which includes the overall whitish colour of the form and the inclusion of plastic sheets and mechanistic parts in it. The work is made up five vertical box-like compartments. Each compartment contains imagery dealing with a specific subject. The overall theme is Asean or the Association of Southeast Asian nations. It is a statement about the march into the new millennium and its entailing socio-cultural problems. In the first compartment we find the bank notes of the region; in the second, we find a round compass and a danger sign; in the third, we find symbols pertaining to the information media, computer circuitry, television censorship and also the national flags of the region; in the fourth, there are larger fragments of the flags of the Asian nations; and in the last panel, we find images pertaining to logging activities and deforestation and among the images in this grouping is that of a small boy watching the ravaged landscape. A lonely butterfly is included here as well symbolising an endangered nature and its life forms. The new interest in the social issues by the younger artists and their attempts to comment on societal issues is indicative of how much has changed in our younger artists’ perceptions. There is cautiousness today about the idea of material progress.





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Extract from "Masterpieces from the National Art Gallery of Malaysia"

《To Be Or Not To Be 0 Standing Egg》2000　

Stainless Steel & Epoxy Resin　610cmx200cmx100cm

Born: 1972          

Education:           1995 - Malaysian Institute of Art, Kuala Lumpur 

　　Wong Pek Yu is a talented young sculptor. This work is derived from the Malay proverb “seperti telur di hujung tanduk” which translated literally means, “An egg located on the tip of an animal’s horn.”What the proverb alludes to is a highly dangerous situation. Whereas the title of the work recalls Hamlet’s famous doubting words to himself, the idea of a great personal problem or dilemma should become clear to the viewer by the sculptor’s positioning of the proverbial egg balanced dangerously on a very sharp, thin blade. How long will it be before it will fall? The precariously balanced red, shiny egg and the sharp, shiny long blade are contained within a longer boat-like form which gives to the overall design a dramatic thrust. The top of the pedestal is filled with small black stones. The work exists outdoors within the Gallery’s large compound. This is a highly respectable sculpture produced by a talented young artist. The attempt to draw from the local cultural and literary contexts is commendable.





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Extract from "Masterpieces from the National Art Gallery of Malaysia"

《One Drop》2000　Stainless Steel　486cm x 160cm x 160cm

Born: 1973

Education:

1992 -    School of Art & Design, University Technology MARA (UiTM), Shah Alam

　　The new significant developments in the area of modern sculpture in this country are very encouraging. The quality of the productions has improved and the new use of sculptures in public places, even if not yet fully realised, does give hope for the future. The National Art Gallery of Malaysia has commissioned a number of large pieces for its compound and Aznan Omar’s Drop is located outside the Gallery’s arts cafe, where it commands its own space.

　　This tall and imposing art work is an exercise in simplistic elegance and authority. The piece is made up of a very tall, black, arch-like rectangular structure that dominates the space. From the top middle part of this rectangular form hangs a heavy bulbous form. This form has been intricately constructed from steel cable wires that have been woven together. It resembles a falling drop of water and it hangs downward. This form hangs from a tightly stretched steel cable wire and its weight heightens the tight tension caused by the pull of gravity. Beneath it is a shiny circular steel form that reflects the form and the sky. These forms stand on a raised cement pedestal containing black shiny stones. There is a Zen-like austerity to the work’s deceptive simplicity as its imposes its presence Part of its effectiveness lies in the fact that the viewer has to look up and see the central forms against the backdrop of the ever changing sky.

 





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Extract from "Masterpieces from the National Art Gallery of Malaysia"

《Dialogue 2 (Don’t Play During Magrib)》　1966　Mixed Media　221cm x 1120cm

Born:     1962

Education:

1985 -    School of Art & Design, University Technology MARA (UiTM), Shah Alam

1989 -    Faculty of Art & Design, Manchester Polytechnic, United Kingdom

　　Zulkifli Yusof is one of our significant younger artists and he has produced a prolific body of work. This very large and complex installation work entitled Don’t Play During Maghrib was shown at the Venice Bienniale in 1997. It is a complex work made up of multiple compositional components and it forces the viewer to enter into its spaces and interact with his multiple forms, images and environments. This artist’s large installation works are geared toward social commentary and critique and they incorporate many kinds of artistic mediums and modes of treatment. A first look at his forms will reveal a somewhat “primitive” feel about his installations as if they had come from a tribal culture of long ago. There is also the “rawness” in the execution of his works. On another level, his drawings remind us of the crude graffiti scribbling on walls or the drawings of mad people. That his works have an assertive, overwhelming presence is undeniable. Entering his installation situations is like entering a specially charged space.

　　This particular work deals with the theme of Maghrib or that time at dusk when the Muslims perform their evening prayers. Muslim children are told not to play outside the house at dusk as that is the time the spirits and evil forces come out. The work’s evocation of the possible fears and images contained in the minds of small children is exteriorised in this work which includes a number of ceramic sculptures of evil spirits as well. His works incorporates drawing as vital element in their conception and construction. His multi-dimensional installations engage the viewer forcefully.





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Extract from "Masterpieces from the National Art Gallery of Malaysia"

《Smiling Van Gogh And Smiling Gauguin》　1995　

Mixed media on canvas　242cm x 450cm

Born:     1972

Education:

1984 -    School of Art & Design, University Technology MARA (UiTM), Shah Alam

1990 - Southern Illinois University, U.S.A.

1991       - Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York

　　Hasnul Jamal Saidon belongs to the significant group of artists who had introduced post-modernist ideas into the local art scene during the Nineties. He has experimented with electronic media as well. The underpinnings of the post-modernist thinking, with its radical re-questioning and de-constructive tendencies originally surfaced in France during the Sixties as a philosophical movement. These radical ideas entered the international art scene during the Eighties. It took root, quite belatedly, within the local art scene during the Nineties. Smiling Van Gogh and Smiling Gauguin is an example of a post-modernist production and it deals with the art context and with art history. The artist has appropriated aspects of Van Gogh’s and Gauguin’s art into his painting in order to make a satirical comment on them as well as on the more orthodox Western art historical tradition celebrating artistic geniuses. It also touches on the idea of the “noble savage” myth popularised by Gauguin’s paintings.

　　The work is made up of several of Gauguin’s “exotic” Tahitian women standing in poses that have been taken from the painter’s famous paintings. These women exist under a night sky that is blazing with swirling stars, a quotation taken from Van Gogh’s famous painting entitled Starry Night. A closer scrutiny of the Tahitian women (who could pass off as Malay women, in any case) will reveal that they are dressed in Asian costumes which include the Malay baju kurung and the kebaya Iabuh as well as the Japanese kimono. Look more closely into these dresses and you will find that the designs and patterns on them have been taken out of modern Western artistic styles. Among these is the gestural imagery of Jackson Pollock’s Abstract Expressionism. Some of the women though are wearing dresses with Malay patterns. The work makes a wry comment on the heroes of art history and the perceptions of the exotic native by Western artists.

 





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Extract from "Masterpieces from the National Art Gallery of Malaysia"

《Entry Points》　1978　Acrylic and assemblage on board　152cm x 136cm

Born:     1939

Education:

1963 - Hornsey College of Art, London

1975 - University of Hawaii, Honolulu

          -Culture Learning Institute, East- West Centre, Honolulu

 

　　Ideas about the art context and history underpin this Conceptual art work produced in 1978. The work highlights the relationship between the artist and art traditions. Artists are usually influenced by other artists or other art traditions.lt is common for artists to deny their obligations to other artists (and, therefore history) in order to safeguard the uniquesness of their own respective accomplishments. It is the customary role of the art critic or art historian to detect and elaborate on these underlying relationships. In this work, Redza Piyadasa invests the relationship with fresh possibilities. The use of texts by the artist in this work was a feature of the Conceptual art works that he created during the Seventies, beginning with his The Great Malaysian Landscape, produced in 1972.

　　An original oil painting by another Malaysian artist Chia Yu Chian, executed in 1958, and entitled Riverside Scene, is absorbed into Piyadasa’s 1978 work. By choosing the work of Chia Yu Chian (generally considered an important Nanyarig artist of the Fifties) Piyadasa acknowledges the existence of a modern art tradition in this country. Further, the stenciled sentence below the Chia Yu Chian painting alludes to notions of time - time as idealised by history’s myth making processes and time existing outside history’s concerns. Significant artists and art works are legitimised by their entry points into specific art historical contexts and idealised time frames. By actually transporting an original work of art produced in 1958 into his 1978 work, Piyadasa has invested actual works of art with the ability to move across historically idealised positions and enter new contexts. A historical transgression has been set up. This work typifies the reflexive and dialectical approach of this artist during the Conceptual art phase of his career.

 





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Extract from "Masterpieces from the National Art Gallery of Malaysia"

《Why Are You Like That?》1969　Printage on canvas　195.6cm x 121.9cm

Born:     1936

Education:

1956 - Nanyang Academy of Art, Singapore

1959 -    Byan Shaw School of Drawing & Painting, London

1963 -    Royal Academy Schools, London

　　The painter Ibrahim Hussein has employed many different stylistic idioms in his illustrious career and his employment of the pop art style was manifested during his stay in New York during the last decades of the Sixties. This painting is one of those works executed in New York when he was a young man. The work’s cosmopolitan and international frames of reference are immediately noticeable in the imagery as well as the mood of the work. Bearing in mind that the artist had earlier studied in London during the first half of the Sixties, this work reflects his very long exposures to the cultural contexts of Western society. The Sixties was indeed a fabulous era and this work captures something of the glitziness and the glamour of that period. The many images in the work are mostly derived from the world of popular mass culture. The beautiful Western women are from fashion magazines and film magazines. The other images, such as the television set, the Beatles all allude to mass culture influences. Words and sentences are stencilled all over the painting. Many are pop song titles.

　　The Sixties was also the era when that Mahaguru of the information age, Marshall MacLuhann, had made his prophetic pronouncements about the medium and the message or, was it the massage? And he had also used the term “the Global village”. It is interesting to note too how much art critical approaches have also changed since then and how differently we view this work today for its interesting use of the popular culture references and the textual modes contained in it. This significant work produced by a Malaysian artist reveals how complex and multifaceted the actual issue of Malaysian cultural experience is. Ibrahim Hussein had, as a young man, described that other more international and cosmopolitan side of the Malaysian exposure and experience.





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Extract from "Masterpieces from the National Art Gallery of Malaysia" 

《Gerak Termpur》1996　Welded metal　

82cm x 51cm x 51cm and　61.5cm x 56.8cm x 50cm

Born:     1967

Education:

1986 -    School of Art & Design, University Technology MARA (UiTM), Shah Alam

　　The theme of the battling warriors is especially popular in Malaysian society. And this is best reflected in the story of the final duel between the legendary Malay warriors Hang Tuah and Hang Jebat. Both warriors were very close friends but circumstances of honour and duty had brought them face to face in a final battle to the death. Hang Tuah, working for the ruler was the victor and Hang Jebat, the rebel who had challenged the ruler, was killed. Central to the final outcome of the duel was a magical keris or dagger which changed hands a few times during the battle. This theme has been celebrated in Malay poems, dramatic performances, films and also in Malaysian art.

　　Raja Shariman’s sculptures of the battling warriors immediately bring to mind the story of the Hang Tuah and Hang Jebat duel. And, more so when he has used Malay silat postures and the Malay keris in several of the works belonging to this series of works produced by him. He is a sculptor who works with metal and he uses the welding approach to create his forms, which are usually made from used scrap metal bits. His ability to handle metal is truly remarkable as evidenced in these two pieces reproduced here. Raja Shariman’s malleable use of the metal medium is impressive and he achieves very plastic qualities out of his manipulation of the medium. His treatment has lent to the forms a dramatic energy and liveliness. But these two forms involved in the ferocious hand to hand combat are not the flesh and blood characters of the Hang Tuah and Hang Jebat legend of ancient times. These are depersonalised, dehumanised, cyborg-like creatures, more at home in the science fiction stories of a future age and time. One wonders, has that time already arrived?





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Extract from "Masterpieces from the National Art Gallery of Malaysia"

《Icons And Precious Earth: An Installation》　1991　

Ceramic Sculpture　243.5cm x 91cm x 98cm

Born:     1929

Education:

1952 -    Malayan Teacher’s Training College, Kirby, Liverpool

1 957 -   Chelsea School of Art, London,

1961       - Hornsey College of Art, University of London

　　Yeoh Jin Leng, besides being an accomplished painter, is also a very talented ceramic artist. And he has achieved a considerable reputation for his hand-made pottery forms and his abstract ceramic sculptural pieces. This work reproduced here is a good example reflecting his sensitivity to the medium. The artist’s deep interest in nature and the environment must explain his interest in organic shapes and forms, as is reflected in his paintings, drawings and also in his ceramic forms. His approach toward creativity has been largely influenced by the interest in vitalistic, biomorphic considerations.

　　Icons And Precious Earth: An Installation is a complex ceramic sculpture that is made up of several different components. The organic pieces include the vertical, rounded cylindrical forms with organic shapes extending from them and the other smaller components which include the dark standing human figures and the flat shapes, scattered across the floor of the platform on which all the forms have been displayed. The impression that one gets is of a strange, surrealistic landscape filled with the tall standing structures that could be representing edifices. These organic towers are interesting for their unusual shapes. Where is this city located? Which time frame describes their existence? One is reminded of those strange cities that one encounters in films dealing with fantasy settings such as in the Hollywood films dealing with the mythical characters Conan or the Beast Master. This is a world of ingeniously designed organic edifices and shapes that is not of our world. The viewer may be reminded of the organic architecture of Antonio Gaudi. There is the same kind of creative invention of abstract, organic environments.

 





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Extract from "Masterpieces from the National Art Gallery of Malaysia"

《Rebab Player》1991　Carved wood　400cm x 240cm x 100cm

Born:     1952

Education:

1977 -    School of Art & Design, University Technology MARA (UiTM), Shah Alam

　　Mad Annuar Ismail has been a full-time sculptor since graduating from Art College. He has worked in metal and wood but wood is his favourite medium. He seems to have a natural way with the material. He comes from a tropical Malay culture where the wood carving tradition was once deeply entrenched. He was trained at the ITM School of Art and Design during the Seventies and was, like so many other Malay artists, at that time, affected by the Malay-Islamic revivalist movement. He was inspired to re-discover his Malay “roots” and the result has been a body of impressive abstract sculptures. The sculptor belongs to the modernist “truth to material” tradition of Brancusi and Henry Moore, with its emphasis on the respect for the innate characteristics already existing in sculptural mediums. This large sculpture entitled Rebab Player was inspired by the traditional Malay musicians who still play the rebab instrument at special official court functions.

　　Look closely at the form and study the shape of the two long arms manipulating the tall vertical musical instrument. The abstracted shape of a man becomes apparent. The work is an abstracted design derived from the body of the seated musician manipulating the musical instrument. The musical instrument is suggested in this work by the tall, vertical, central form with the carved knobs. The long horizontal form in front is the ”bow” of the rebab. The spine of the musician is revealed in the smaller, spiky vertical column. This a good example of “open form” sculpture. The interlocking forms exist to heighten an experience of the spaces that exist within as well as around the form. The sense of movement induced by the playing action of the musician is dramatically depicted. What gives the work its excitement is the way the sculptor has used his chisel marks to create rich textural qualities all over the form. Painted black, the work still retains its wood characteristics. The sculpture has been conceived as free standing without the need for a pedestal.

 





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