Victor Chin

Hu-Kun, artist from China,’Taming the Tiger’, ink painting

The tiger, now an endangered species of wild life, mainly due to increasing number of poachers and deforestation, is found only in a few natural habitats. We are fortunate that in the Malayan jungle, in the 1950s (though they were already being hunted then), there were about 3,000  of these magnificent creatures.

Now it’s estimated that only 500 are alive (WWF sources).

Our nation’s emblems, crest and coat-of-arms, proudly carry the signs of the tiger. We also put the “tiger” in our car petrol tank. Many drink the “tiger” beer. And the Malayan Banking logo also uses the tiger as a symbol of strength and national pride.

In India, there are only 1,200-1,500 White Bengal tigers around. The Siberian tiger is down to 350-450 in the whole of Russia. Thailand and Vietnam have about 1,000 Indo-Chinese tigers. Sumatra has between 400 to 500 of their Sumatran creatures. The tigers in China are almost extinct except for those kept in their zoos.

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Tan Hon Yin in his studio/house in Penang

Tang Hon Yin, 67, was a geography teacher and later a State Education Director, in Penang for more the 30 years.  After school hours, his artistic passion was painting but now he does it whenever he likes. He is currently the chairman of the Penang Art Gallery.

For many years he has been producing paintings with Nature as the main subject. His first solo exhibition “Water Margin” was in 1983 in Penang. The collection was later shown in Kuala Lumpur in 1986. His latest series “Silk Road” was shown in 2008 in Melbourne, Australia.

Though he didn’t go to art school but through his many trips abroad, on his own initiative, he adopted two artistic parents, the American artists Mark Rothko and Richard Diebenkom. They were his main inspirations. Tang admired the two artists for their use of colours and shapes and compositions.

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Ahmad A Khairuddin’s ‘ Cityscape’

A group of artists — all autistic — got together and held an exhibition recently to celebrate United Voice’s own building.

A self-advocacy society for people with learning disabilities in Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya, United Voice (UV) has been around since 1995.

After successfully raising more than RM1 million through various fund-raising events and donations, UV finally managed to purchase their own space this year.

The ground floor is their showroom and training centre where baking classes and craft making workshops are held while the first floor houses an art gallery.

It was in this gallery that the works of Nurul A. Rahman, Tan Seng Kit, Nadiah A. Jalil, Damiem Wong and Ahmad A. Khairuddin were shown.

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Syed Ahmad Jamal, Between Haven and Earth

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.

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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…