The six artists (from left) Heikal, Chayanin, Arikwibowo, Fazrin, Amar and Safar at the G13 Gallery.
THE artworks by six young artists at G13 Gallery at Kelana Square might have their own unique styles, but all of them have something in common – a strong message to convey to the public.
Be it acrylic, charcoal or oil, these six young artists’ paintings reflect what is taking place in the world today and their perceptions of these developments.
As seen in a simple and straight-forward manner, local artist Safar Zin’s collection titled “All Evil” that used acrylic and charcoal on canvas conveyed his thoughts about social media users.
“I distorted the pictures with three portraits of me by covering the eyes, ears and mouth similar to the popular saying; see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil.
“It shows that social media users do not bother to verify facts before sharing certain information and do not bother about the consequences of their actions.
“This is happening in real life as we see a lot of people are making irresponsible posting in social media,” he said.
His painting titled “Mainstream” featured himself “holding” a quote “I post therefore I am” and “I follow therefore I am” is based on Rene Descartes famous quote: “I think therefore I am”, which condemns the actions of irresponsible postings on social media.
Another artist, Arikwibowo Amril, 28, sees the world in darker hues as his paintings, titled “Gold Digger”, “Kidnap” and “Syndicate”, had horrid compositions of disfigured bodies using the collage technique.
It also featured a repetition of symbols as metaphors to show people’s dissatisfaction about the state of affairs and economic injustice in the country.
“The symbol of a dollar sign, a pair of knives, and a revolver is a reflection of the current pop culture in Malaysia.
“Crimes are taking place everywhere and cases of people being kidnapped or murdered are worrying.
“Money is the root of all evil as most of these cases involved money,” he said, adding that the artworks portrayed an ongoing story of criminal cases.
The artworks which were inspired from Andy Warhol’s pop era also featured the artist’s portrait embedded with emotions.
“This is how I perceive society. I feel angry and helpless because there is nothing I can do about it,” Arikwibowo said.
Heikal Taki’s two paintings titled “Father Figure” and “Wife Material” were his take on how society viewed men and women differently.
“In the case of the woman’s portrait, I want to highlight that some women are still being liberated by society in this country while ‘Father Figure’ showed that no man is perfect.
“I also want to show how gender and race are being stereotyped in the world,” he said.
The art exhibition that runs until Jan 30 also featured Thai artist Chayanin Kwangkaew whose oil painting of two girls could easily be mistaken as photographs.
“I painted every detail of the model from a photograph and added abstract elements to cloud the background and give a more imaginative space to those admiring it.
“Although the choices of colours are mostly black and white, the model somehow looked calm and serene, depicting a contradictory effect from the painting,” he said.
Tracing back traditions, Fazrin Abd Rahman’s love for the traditional weaving technique had given him the idea to modernise it into his contemporary artwork.
Made of aluminium sheets with spray paint, Fazrin said his artwork that comes in four different pieces, were experimental in nature.
“I love the weaving technique a lot and I wanted to preserve this art technique in modern society.
“Beside reminding people of the weaving technique through my artwork, I also want to know how people would perceive my artwork.
“There were a lot of trials to get the colour right and it was an experimental project for me,” he said.
Lastly, local artist Amar Shahid saw beauty from the imperfections of old photographs and immortalised it with his painting.
For him, it was a more philosophical approach as he hopes to reinstate discussions of formalism back into art criticism.
“There is a fine line between photographs and a painting and this questions the two-dimensional and three-dimensional planes which differentiate these two.
“Painting exactly what photographs showed, including the flaws, might give a rigid feeling to the painting.
“So for some of the photographs, I added a few strokes of paint,” he said.
Visitors should not be surprised by the random flare or watermark in his pictures as they were deliberate.
The exhibition opens from 11am to 5pm daily except Sunday.
For details, visit www.g13gallery.com.
