Victor Chin

Syed Ahmad Jamal, Langit & Bumi 1, 1982-1986, acrylics on canvas, 203×224cm

NOV 22 — The 3rd international art market or Artexpo Malaysia is on this week in Kuala Lumpur. This will be a good opportunity for anyone interested in the sport of collecting artworks. The organiser has also got the National Art Gallery Malaysia in as co-organiser.

Artexpo promises art objects “Old and new, East and West. Whatever forms, whatever styles, whatever media. Paintings, sculptures, prints, assemblages, installations, new media (digital art). Astonishing artworks from all over the world — Asia, Europe — Eastern and Western, the United States, Central America. A true united nations of art people from all over the world every November since 2007.”

This art marketing event like all trading networks has an anthropological history. Man has always had this compulsive motivation to succeed or to win and will turn any human activity into a sport or a game (sometimes ruthlessly bloody). They argue that it could be both productive and also an amusement — a great pastime in the dark caves (perhaps in Mulu, Sarawak).

Over the thousands of years of human evolution this act of gamesmanship has become an art — the art of winning by cunning practices without actually cheating. Just think of the recent so called world financial crisis and see how some of the multi-national players got away with it and were rewarded as well. Some say it was not greed that got us there but envy.

Read more in The Malaysian Insider here…

Syed Ahmad Jamal, Endau Rompin, 1985, Acrylics on canvas, 173×223cm

Nature has always been an inspiration for artists throughout the ages. Mountains, in particular, have inspired many regional landscape painters.

From China there has been a long history of artists who painted the many outstanding geological features of their physical geography. Some of these artworks besides depicting the shapes and designs of mountain formations in great detail also conveyed clear information of the various geological compositions of their landscapes.

One of the most well-known Japanese artists, Hokusai, from the Edo period, made colour wood block prints of a series of 36 views of Mount Fuji. The Great Wave of Kenagawa done in 1831 is one of Hukusai’s signature compositions of this collection of early postcards of Japan.

Cezanne paid homage to his boyhood home in Provence by painting the Mont Sainte-Victoire in Aix at least 60 times from 1885 to 1906. His devotion to a single hillock slightly over 1,000m in his backyard set the modern standard of painting and looking at European landscapes since the Renaissance.

He began to dismantle previous ideas of perspective and started to flatten out and break up his subject by using fragmented shapes, colours and brush marks. His paintings led the way for Matisse and Picasso and to Abstraction.

Syed Ahmad Jamal, Gunung Ledang Visited, 1992, Acrylics on canvas, 173×239cm

The mountains of Malaysia have attracted a few artists. Fung Yow Chork and Razak Abdullah are among the few landscape painters who got inspiration form the mountain backdrop of Kuala Lumpur, the Ulu Klang quartz ridge and Genting Highlands. Mount Kinabalu (4,101m), our highest mountain between the Himalayas and the Snow Mountains of New Guinea, has a devoted Sabahan painter — Benedict Chong.

Syed Ahmad Jamal, whose retrospective exhibition is currently at the National Art Gallery, has been moved by Gunung Ledang, near Muar, his home town, in Johor. Jamal has painted three artworks with that name. The first Gunung Ledang was in 1978 (this painting is not in the show), then Gunong Ledang Visited in 1992 and the last one Semangat Ledang in 1999.

Read more in The Malaysian Insider here…

A documentary of the ‘Saya Anak Bangsa Malaysia’s (SABM) “Believe Instead” public forum on Saturday 23 January 2010, at the Kuala Lumpur Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall. There were more then 230 participants from all walks of life from in and around the city. It was the first of a series of forums.The SABM plans a roadshow through the country in the course of the year.

My mother passed away almost three years ago. My mother was diagnosed with congestive heart condition in late 1999.  Seven years later, on 31st October 2006, she was admitted into University Hospital to have a heart by-pass surgery.

My mother never regained consciousness after her surgery.  Sadly, 40 days later on 9th December 2006 at 7.00pm, she passed away at the age of 80 still in the Intensive Care Unit.  I did not get to hold my Mum’s hand or stroke her face one last time as she passed away before I got there.

I remember vividly the day when my brother rang to tell me that my mother was critically ill.  My husband and I were our way to do our weekly groceries shopping.  It was 12.30pm in Auckland where we live and over in Kuala Lumpur it was 7.30am in the morning.  My instincts told me that it was not good news.

I had no empathy about death until I lost my dear mother.  My heart was like a vase smashed by a hammer. Baffled and bereft, I somehow muddled through in the days after her death. Her death taught me that life is fleeting and family counts. Conjuring her voice, her infectious laughter and our frequent long distance calls have become a way for me to keep her close, to gather together the bits and pieces of her that reside within me.

Born in 1926, my mother’s life spanned the Great Depression, World War II, the repressed ‘50s, the stormy ‘60s, disco, Y2K, 9/11, mobile phones, the digital revolution, emails and beyond.
I love the twinkle in Mum’s eyes whenever she talked about Seenum, my brother’s son.  Being a traditionalist, having grandson to carry on the Chin’s family name was her ultimate desire in her life.  My nephew fulfilled my Mum’s joy and pride.

Now when I go back to the house where Mum lived, I can almost see my mother’s face peering out the lounge window as my husband and I arrive even before we get to the door bell. She’s been gone nearly three years and her presence still permeates through out the house, her bedroom, the kitchen, the garden, the verandah, everywhere.
My mother left me with lots of famous sayings and lots of funny stories. This is how I get through the loss of my mother — by telling stories of her exploits, by laughing at her infamous mispronunciations, by remembering her strength, by following her Hakka recipes (“harm gai” which is her secret Hakka recipe of soaking a steamed “kampong” chicken in her concoction of home brewed rice wine and granulated salt).

In a letter she wrote for my brother and to read after her death, which we found in her drawer beneath ancient bank statements, I never really thought about death until I lost my mother. But losing someone close to you gives you clarity. It helps you see what matters most; it allows you to appreciate the precious pieces a person leaves behind.
It’s my mother’s voice I hear whenever I am worried, in response to my worries about money or work or weight.

My mother may be gone, but she is never gone from my heart as I replay fond memories of her. My mother and I shared a great mother and daughter relationship and bond.  She had an irrepressible love of a good mother and will be unforgettable.  I don’t ever recall saying out loud “I love you” to my mother.  Words may be missing but we had a deep affection for each other.  Most of the time, even before she opened her mouth to say something, I already had an inclination what my mother is going to tell me. I still miss her very much and I know she is always watching over me, my brother and her immediate family members.

“Land Below The Wind”, Cheong Sung Kin’s title for his exhibition of ceramic sculptures and teapots, is taken from the title of a book written in 1939 by the American author Agnes Newton Keith. Cheong is from Sandakan and the book was written in the same town in Sabah (then known as North Borneo). Subsequently that title has been accepted as the unofficial descriptor for Sabah.

Keith wrote mainly about her domestic life as a colonial official’s wife and a little of her infrequent treks into the jungle. Cheong’s sculptures are of the landscapes and its inhabitants; from his own observations and the family’s backyard. He grew up surrounded by natural environments and indigenous cultures and peoples.

“Land Below The Wind” was written in a genial style and is still very readable today. But Cheong’s new collection of forest and mountain settings have been through a baptism of fire and come out the other side as exquisite and unique objects of art. Besides, there are not many artists like him today who use wood fire to fire their clayware.

“Land Below The Wind No. 1″ is an imaginative and powerful use of clay to describe living in the middle of the rainforest and having to climb up and down the steps and negotiating the terrain daily. These are majestic trees with their crowns touching the clouds and the branches look like they are holding up the sky. This is not just art but the art of living with the forest.

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