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.