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

《Hill Of Thyme》1983　Acrylic on canvas　71cm x 51cm (x3)

Born:     1941

Education:

1962 -    Sydney University, Australia

1963 - National School of Art, Sydney

1970 -    Art Institute of Chicago, United States of America

　　Joseph Tan’s approach to creativity was marked by a highly meticulous and fastidious approach to creativity. And this becomes clear in the present work. He was interested in aspects of the local landscape, namely, rock formations and rock faces. Whereas at first sight one would be inclined to describe his rock studies as landscapes, his works addressed issues dealing with the central concerns of modern painting, namely, ideas related to the two dimensional character of the painting’s surface. And his mode of treatment highlighted this concern. This work reproduced here reveals some of the problems. The present work was conceived as a triptych. Three separate canvasses have been joined together to accommodate a continuing image in the three different canvasses.

　　The top most section of the triptych reveals the continuing segments of the blue sky. The larger bottom part of the painting contains the imeticulously rendered details of the rock formations. The eye follows the view on each canvas and connects with the next canvas. Further, the deliberate use of the unpainted white areas in the middle parts of the canvasses, just above the horizon line, have been left untouched and in white. This unfilled whiteness neutralises the suggestion of a common illusory pictorial space. The idea of traditional pictorial depth is neutralised and the flattened effect of the painting is the result. The viewer is made conscious that what one is seeing are essentially colours, shapes, textures and lines that have been placed on a two dimensional ground. There are atmospheric moods evoked in his delicately rendered tonalities that recall Chinese painting sensibilities. These qualities do enhance the enjoyment of Joseph Tan’s finely executed art works.





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

《Water Margin》1995　Acrylic on canvas　126cm x 200cm

Born: 1943          

Education:

1963 - University Malaya, Kuala Lumpur

　　Colour field painting was one of the popular international artistic pre-occupations of the Seventies and this work, produced much later, reveals an aspect of the Malaysian involvement with the idiom. This self taught Malaysian artist had however fused the colour field concept with an oriental touch and included as well what appears to be the movement of the sun as it sinks into the horizon. Three stages of its disappearing process are depicted in this work, thereby adding an overlapping time element into the work as well. The sinking form is depicted as a three layered glow in the midst of the green colour field. The result is not pure colour field in the original sense but a syncretic version of it, Malaysian style.

　　The artist’s interests in tactile effects had resulted in his infusing his work with minutely rendered textures all over the surface via the use of the air brush technique. The work’s overall colour scheme is dominated by greens. The composition is divided into two zones, namely, the sky and the water, divided by the use of a long horizon line that cuts across the work. At the outer edges of the work, gradations of colours form a border that goes all around. The mood of this formalistic work is very subdued and quiet. This is a very sensitively rendered work which induces in the viewer deep concentration and contemplation.

 





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

《Mankind》1992　Welded and cut steel plates　224cm x 163.5cm x 141cm

Born: 1948

Education:

1969 -    Tokyo Research Institute of Cultural Properties

1971 -    Tokyo Hanga Kenkyusho

1976 -    Tokyo National University of Arts & Music

　　Mankind by Lee Kian Seng is reflective of the artist’s many attempts to produce art works that incorporated elements derived from the actual environment occupied by the viewer. In this case, the use of the grass growing in real time, lends to the sculpture a real time dimension that the viewer also shares. His interest in works that attempted to break the demarcations between art and life had involved his earlier attempts to bring in a participatory dimension as well. This is noticeable in his earlier 1977 work entitled Of Image, Object, Illusion -Off Series Measurement which included a small box on the floor containing two steps that the viewer had to step on to. The viewer had to climb up the steps and salute the image of the painted images of the Malaysian flag. Such approaches had revealed his attempts to introduce new approaches within the local art scene when the dominant approaches toward creativity had been confined to more traditional definitions of art founded strictly on the painting /sculpture dichotomy.

　　The present work shown here is made up of metal sheets that have been welded together to form two large L-shaped abstract forms that are locked together. The two forms are raised above the ground but are, nevertheless, connected to flat metal sheets sited on the ground. The sheets on the ground have been cut up neatly and brought together so that grass can be allowed grow inside this rectangular area that joins both forms. A “real time” dimension, albeit existing within the art context, forces new modes of looking. In this case, the grass has also to be tended and cut regularly. Traditional definitions of sculpture are thus questioned. The artist’s attempts to move away from pedestal-oriented sculpture were significant during the Seventies in opening up fresh thinking about artistic practices. Similarly, the cutting up of one of the L-shaped forms to emphasis the negative spaces, as is noticeable here, reveals his interests in “open form” sculpture as well. He was one of the Malaysian artists of the Seventies who had introduced the idea of the “situational” art works within the local art scene.

 





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

《SEA Thru-flow 3》1974　Wood and mixed media construction　30cm x 121cm x 15cm

Born    : 1934

Education     :

1961-Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan

1968-Pratt Institute, New York

　　Choong Kam Kow, like Tang Tuck Kang and the other Malaysian New Scene artists, subscribed to the more analytical, non-emotional and non-symbolic approaches in creativity inspired by the Neo-Constructivist tendencies of the Seventies. Rejecting the gestural marks of the expressionist artists, the artist has constructed five undulating forms that have been brought together to form a composite whole. The work was designed to be hung together on a wall or exhibited side by side on the floor. This work is actually an “object” rather than a sculpture in that it is self referential and does not depict anything outside of itself. Neatly cut holes have been made on the forms to emphasise the intrusion of real physical space and this has heightened its identity as a “Thing”. It is, in essence, a minimalist form existing in the same space as the viewer. The highly polished surfaces suggest an industrially “finished” look and character.

　　This work was one of the small numbers of significant art works that had emerged within the local art scene during the Seventies that had drawn attention to the “real” rather than the illusory in art practices. It belonged to the small number of challenging environmental works that had anticipated the later Malaysian involvements with installations during the mid-Eighties and Nineties.

 





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

《49 Squares》1969　Acrylic on canvas　203cm x 203cm

Born: 1934          

Education:          

1965- St. Martin’s School of Art, London

Tan Tuck Kang’s 49 Squares, produced in 1969, was featured in an important art exhibition held that same year called The New Scene. The artist belonged to a small group of artists who were trying to introduce an alternative approach to creativity from that of Abstract Expressionism which had gained dominance within the local art scene. Inspired by the Neo Constructivist influences that were underpinned by the newly introduced Basic Design approach, this group of artists had proposed a more rational and analytical approach to creativity. Rejecting emotional and associative symbolisms, they had also rejected nature as a source of influence. The had projected a new idea of creativity based on constructive principles which would enhance perceptual experiences. Rejecting the gestural marks of the expressionist painter, they turned to geometry and mathematics as well as to the use of mechanistic modes of creativity. The insistence was that art was founded on systems and artists had to be intellectually accountable.

　　The principle of serial repetition for maximum optical effect is highlighted in this work. The basic unit used is the square which is repeated forty-nine times. The composition has been carefully programmed to allow for surface activation and optical visual stimulation. The eye is exposed to a subtle optical “push and pull’ effect as it studies the images of the protruding and receeding squares. Similarly, the eye is not allowed to rest but is forced to travel all over the canvas surface. Considerable adjustments in viewing habits had to be made by the Malaysian viewers of that era to appreciate this new optical, non-emotive form of artistic experience.





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

《Layer Series》1982　Mixed Media　195cm x 125cm

Born: 1951

Education:

1969 -    School of Art & Design, University Technology MARA (UiTM), Shah Alam

1982 -    Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore

　　Fauzan Omar surfaced within the local art scene during the late Eighties. He reflected the new non-personalised abstractionist developments that marked the efforts made to challenge the dominant emotive-gestural and highly personalised approaches of the Malaysian Abstract Expressionists. Influenced by the ideas and attitudes of the New Scene artists, this younger artist, a graduate from the ITM School of Art and Design, had also bypassed the new Malay-Islamic impulses of the Eighties, that many of his generation were involved with. He was influenced by international frames of artistic reference and his interest was in perceptual and coloristic considerations.

　　These formal interests of his are noticeable in the work reproduced here. This large work has a busy “ripped up” look about it and it is filled with all manner of coloured shapes floating across the pictorial field. Movement is activated. He used illusionistic effects when he felt the need to tease the viewer’s eye. For instance, the red used for the bottom background will suddenly become linked to a smaller red shape floating against another coloured shape. Is it a separate shape or a bit of exposed red background? There is also the suggestion that a particular shape has been pasted on to the canvas and it turns out to be really so. There is also the simulation of collagistic effects. Some parts of the canvas have been cut to merge the pictorial space with real space. Some of these cuts have been sewn up. He has focused on warm colours and cool colours and set up tensions between them. The resultant effect was an emphasis on fragmented looking surface shapes that had an optical “push and pull” effect on the eye. The work also suggests a sense of deep space by the use of perspective effects subtly used. It was, despite the strong expressive colours and shapes used, a non-emotional approach to creativity. It was determined by a strong sense of design and a controlled manipulation.





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

《Sri Jingga Indera Kayangan》1998　Acrylic on canvas　183cm x 153cm

Born: 1948

Education:

1967       School of Art & Design, University Technology MARA (UiTM), Shah Alam

1973 - Reading University, Reading

1976 - Pratt Institute, New York

　　Sharifah Fatimah Zubir was a student of the ITM School of Art Design during the Sixties and had imbibed the Abstract Expressionist idiom as well. Her approach would seem to be nearer to the work of Hans Hoffmann in its conscious investigation of colour properties and energies rather than on the impulsive celebration of gestural marks alone. Her serious involvement with colouristic explorations has given to her works an added dimension, namely, a more rigidly structured look and a more pronounced interest in the inter-relationship of coloured shapes. Her paintings are filled with organic shapes featuring contrasting complemetary colours. In this early work, her fragmented shapes exist on a very large, red background which radiates its own colour energy. Against this red background are placed the fragmented, exploding shapes filled with contrasting complementary colours, moving in many directions. One has to read these different fragmented coloured shapes against the red background all the time. Both figure and ground are activated simultaneously. The individual energies of the smaller shapes either offset or activate the background red. There is a suggestion of a musical piece invoked here in the differing resonances that are set off as shapes and colours interact with each other as well as with the background. Her’s is a much more controlled kind of expressive abstraction, less impulsive and less prone to accidental effects.





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

《The Belum Manifestation》　1994　Mixed media on canvas　155cm x 216cm

Born: 1956

Education:

1979 -    School of Art & Design, University Technology MARA (UiTM), Shah Alam

1989 -    The Catholic university of America, Washington DC

　　The popularity of the gestural Abstract Expressionist idiom has prevailed for decades within the Malaysian art scene and produced many tireless practisioners of the idiom. Awang Damit is another one of these middle generation expressionistic artists. He was born in Sarawak and it is, perhaps, this background of his that must explain the introduction of the distinct tribal looking shapes that have lent to his abstractionist efforts a suggestion of place-ness even. He has incorporated fragmented shapes derived from the tribal cultures of Sarawak as well as other organically derived forms into his abstract paintings. He has employed colour schemes that are also rooted in distinctive tribal contexts. Further, he has mixed his colours with sand-like substances and these rich, textured substances, when applied on to the surfaces of his art works, have lent to his shapes and forms a visual density made possible by the richly textured, tactile qualities. It has also allowed for a suggestion of a visual “rawness”. The viewer is inclined to want to touch and feel his painted surfaces. They are sensuously attractive.

　　The Belum Manifestation is a good example of the artistic treatment employed by this artist. The work was produced after an expedition that he made to the Belum forest reservation and reveals all the visual characteristics that are usually associated with his approach to painting. Note the tribal looking form on the left that looks like a shield. Note also the sombre colour scheme of the work. The painting has been divided into separate zones and is filled with vigorous gestural brush marks. The richly textured surface effects plus the gestural marks have lent to the work a vigourous expressiveness.

 





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

《Fan Fern》　1968　Oil on canvas　137cm     x 116cm

Born:     1941

Education:

1962 -    Hornsey College of Art, London

1965 -    Institute of Education, London University, London

1971 -    Indianan University, United States of America

　　Jolly Koh’s Fan Fern, produced in 1968, is typical of the kind of Abstract Expressionist works that had become common within the local art scene during the Sixties. The standard characteristic of the idiom, epitomised by the dramatic gestural brush marks, is highly evident here in this formalistic work. The artist had been influenced by the American painter Mark Rothko and had thus revealed an interest in subtle colouristic harmonies and mood effects as well. What is interesting about this sample of the genre, is the employment of calligraphic influences suggestive of the immediacy of the Chinese brush painting tradition. The popular search among several local artists at that time had included the search for an “oriental-ness” and this work does exude a delicacy reminiscent of some aspects of the Chinese painterly tradition. The muted coloured shapes and tonalities and the vigorously rendered dark brush strokes exist on a white background, heightening figure/ground considerations. The expressive brush strokes are in turn counter balanced by the static squarish shape at the top. The greenish blue tonalities of the colour scheme, like the work’s title implies, evoke essences of the tropical landscape.

 





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

《The Bait》　1959　Oil on board　122cm  x 154cm

 

Born:     1929

Education:

1951 -    Chelsea School of Art, London

1964 -    School of the Art Institute, Chicago, Illinois

1973 -    University of Hawaii, Honolulu 

Syed Ahmad Jamal’s The Bait, produced in 1959, is one of the most famous paintings in the story of Malaysian art. It is considered the first fully abstract, non-objective painting to have been produced in the story of Malaysian art. It marked the beginnings of a shift toward abstraction in this country. This work had also signaled the arrival of Abstract Expressionism into this country, where this new idiom was to have such a strong impact, during the Sixties and after. The artist had been a student in London during the 1950s and was exposed directly to this mode of expressive painting by an exhibition of American examples he had seen at the Tate Gallery. Abstract Expressionism had emerged in the United States and was the dominant style of painting when the Cold War began. The attraction of the movement lay in its imposing a mythic stature on the artist, best epitomised by the immense significance accorded to the artist’s gestural brush marks made on the canvas surface. The movement had encouraged spontaneous execution of art works and a sense of inspired immediacy. Fueled by romantic ideas reiterating the artist’s feelings and his sense of uniqueness, it became very popular in this country during the Sixties and has remained popular until recently. Syed Ahmad Jamal is, perhaps, its most famous exponent in this country. 

　　The artist’s attempts to fuse Western and Eastern influences, namely Chinese influences, is evident in the use of the empty white background of the work. Time has changed the original colour of the white base. The rendering of the two groups of dynamic, swirling, forms that float over the white ground, evoke suggestions of rapidly rushing, water. The calligraphic qualities inherent in the work also remind one of the Chinese brush painting traditions of the Far East. At its appearance, this highly expressive work by Syed Ahmad Jamal, so ahead of its time in this country, exuded an enviable aura inspired by its glaring uniqueness and its ground breaking significance.

 





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