A Metre Perspective
A Metre. A basic unit of length. Being
derived chiefly from the Greek word μέτρον (metron), denoting ‘measure’. But measurement not only provides us with a
technically precise knowledge of scale, it further suggests a grammar of art.
For a metre is also the poetic value of a creative resolve. In poetry, it
describes the rhythmic structure of a verse. ‘I think more of a bird with broad
wings flying and lapsing through the air, than anything, when I think of metre’
observed the Englist novelist, D.H. Lawrence.
The confluence between
the technical and the poetic is found in A
Metre Perspective, an exhibition featuring both emerging and established
artists in Malaysia. In many ways, the guiding principle of the exhibition,
that participating artists should create artworks measuring one metre by one
metre, establishes the rule of the game, through which artists are challenged
as well as encouraged to take their practice to another level.
Like the value of the
metre, as a system of measurement that is conventionally defined, the
established one metre by one metre guideline for this exhibition is also
arbitrary at best. However, it is by setting up the constraint as an ordeal, a
task, a hurdle, or whatever you want to call it, that creativity as an approach
to problem-solving, as a triumph over limitation, is underlined. Yet, this
isn’t a logical endeavour. Art never is. Was it not Samuel Taylor Coleridge who
opined, ‘Poetry is not the proper antithesis to prose, but to science. Poetry
is opposed to science, and prose to metre’?
Given that most
participating artists are inclined towards creating artworks on a larger scale,
the exhibition provides a refreshing perspective into the diverse range of
artistic skills by firstly taking artists beyond their comfort zone (in this
instance, the familiarity of painting on large canvas), and then secondly,
giving us an opportunity to experience their work on a different scale (for
viewing a one metre by one metre work of art makes us see differently than
viewing a bigger piece of work).
The task is then
setting this confinement of scale as an opportunity for the artists to rethink
their practice and hone their poetic
metre. And interestingly enough, artists in this exhibition have taken up
this challenge and interpret it in a number of ways.
One way is to consider
it as a mirror, a reflective surface through which artists can continue to
explore themselves as painted subjects. Both Jalaini Abu Hassan’s The Fascist and Ahmad Fuad Osman’s Victim of Circumstances are
self-deprecating portraits playing the role of a political megalomanic and an
object of derision respectively. Elsewhere, Ahmad Zuraimi Rahim’s Ayahku Seorang Great Master pays a
filial homage to the paternal figure of the artist life as a progenitor of his
creativity. In Bayu Utumo Radjikin’s Being,
the artist continues to fashion himself as a Malay warrior, embodying the spirit
of courage and strength as elements central to his creative pursuit.
In other instances, we
can consider the metre perspective as a binary between transcendence and
materiality. Mohd. Saharuddin Supar’s Super
Internal No. 14 Rising 2K, Ramlan Abdullah’s Connection, Sabri Idrus’s Revisiting
Architecture, Ahmad Shukri Mohamed’s The
Great Wallpaper #21, Wong Chee Meng’s A
Meter Away, and Hamidi Hadi’s Float
evince both emotive and analytical interest in artmaking. Here abstracted forms
articulate the tensions and dynamism between an artistic interest in the
materiality of the artworks and the desire to evoke the emotional tenors that
existed within the chosen medium.
Another approach is to
consider the works of the artists as windows looking out to our social reality.
Phuan Thai Meng’s Perspective
highlights youtube and Internet as a channel for social commentary; often
capable of exposing the unsettling absurdities of the world we live in. In Kow
Leong Kiang’s Whatever, the artist
revisits his well known portraits of kampung Malay girls, capturing them in the
melancholic beauty of their rural surrounding, encapsulating the spirit of
youthful abandon.
Other works look into
the issue of creative expression, often employing surrealist vocabulary to
articulate a dream-like statement. Jeganathan
Ramachandran’s iconoclastic Crying Buddha
develops an emotive iconography in response to the conventional image of the
serene Buddha figure. Hamir Soib’s Mimpi
Bulan Disember explores the deeper recesses of our psyche through the use
of bitumen as a medium to suggest a primeval state of consciousness. Masnoor
Ramli Mahmud’s Pukul Berapa Datuk Harimau
makes cinematic references to legendary Malaysian director P. Ramlee, bridging
artistic impulses towards storytelling that narrative painting and film share.
Malvin Chan’s The Magi narrates the anxiety of the artist embodied in the figure
of the amagician, who is unsure of whether the butterflies of his creation
might overcome him. Similarly, in the only sculptural work in the exhibition,
Daud Abdul Rahim’s Ulat Logam- Pemburu di
Buru is a playful title alluding to the creative exploration of form as an
act of hunting and being hunted by ideas, inspiration and experimentation.
A
Metre Perspective can hardly be called a thematic
exhibition. Its subjects too varied, ideas too complex, styles too diversed.
The single binding feature that all participating artists share is the
challenge to translate their visions and ideas into a scale that is unfamiliar
to their repertoire. This calls for a reevaluation of art making, a chance to
consider the possibility of creating maximum poetic effect in the restriction
of space. After all, creativity blossoms in moments of great constraints. These
are some perspectives through which we can come to appreciate this imaginative
undertaking.
Simon Soon
Artworks
A Victim of Circumstances
Mixed
media | 100 x 100 x 5.5cm | 2009
RM8,500
The Great Wallpaper #21
Mixed
media on canvas | 100 x 100 x 7cm | 2009
RM10,000
Ayahku Seorang Great Master
Mixed
media on steel | 100 x 100 x 7cm | 2009
RM5,000
Being
Acrylic
on canvas | 100 x 100 x 4.5cm | 2009
RM18,000
Ulat Logam- Pemburu Di Buru
Steel
& aluminium | 100 x 89 x 27 cm | 2009
RM8,500
Float
Industrial
paint on canvas | 100 x 100 x 4.5 cm | 2009
RM6,000
Mimpi Bulan Disember
Mixed
media on canvas | 100 x 100 x 4.5 cm | 2009
RM10,000
The Fascist
Mixed
media on canvas | 100 x 100 x 7cm | 2009
RM 20,000
Crying Buddha
Acrylic
on canvas | 106 x 106 x 2cm | 2009
RM12,000
Whatever
Oil
on linen | 100 x 100 x 4.5cm | 2009
RM12,000
The Magi
Oil
on canvas | 100 x 100 x 4.5cm | 2009
RM5,000
Pukul Berapa Datuk Harimau
Acrylic
on canvas | 100 x 100 x 4.5cm | 2009
RM12,000
Perspective
Oil
on canvas | 100 x 100 x 5cm | 2009
RM8,800
Connection
Aluminium
| 107 x 107 x 15cm | 2009
RM16,800
Whatever
Oil
on linen | 100 x 100 x 4.5cm | 2009
RM12,000
Internal No.14 Rising
2K
Clear lacquer on steel | 100 x 100 x 11cm | 2009
RM4,900
Internal No.14 Rising
2K
Clear lacquer on steel | 100 x 100 x 11cm | 2009
RM4,900