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EXHIBITION OVERVIEW "Portraits" brings together sixteen artists from the Southeast Asian region working on the theme of portraiture. The portrait, being synonymous with the face, is by expectation to deliver likeness of the sitter. Being the most conventional of genres, its longevity and diversity can be attributed to the enduring challenge of and fascination with the depiction of the self. In its long tradition, it has transcended several purposes and meanings and transgressed its traditional boundaries and definitions as the meaning of the portrait stretches and bends into diverse artistic and intellectual territory. Within the framework of formal portraiture, which puts the artist and the sitter in an intimate situation (and with the viewer looking over the shoulder of the artist) are Ahmad Zakii Anwar’s drawings of Salleh ben Joned, famous poet and a radical personality in Malaysian society. Zakii Anwar uses the charcoal medium to great effect conveying the physicality of the head and physiognomy of the sitter. My own three portrait studies of friends, Richard, Rachel and Siew Ying are not exact replicas of the sitters. Being familiar with the subjects, a likeness is achieved by picking on certain traits of their characters. For me as a painter, the portrait poses a challenge, forcing one to work within the limits of representation, is not about "why" portraiture, but "how". A portrait can be treated like a small landscape in terms of its formal possibilities. Susie Wong and Geraldine Javier create an emotional distance between the subject and the viewer. Susie Wong paints her mother as "Woman Leaning Against Table", using the table as a barrier. Geraldine Javier uses a candid take of her nephew as he disinterestedly lounges in a round chair in "The Royal Crisis", drowning him in a suffused light not unlike a film-negative in its colour reversal, constructing an ambience of illusory gloss. In "Baby Khoo and the Runaway Nipple" J. Anurendra creates a narrative in his portrait of the dancer Mavin Khoo by using several canvas tableaux of details / parts of the body that read like a cinematic visual script. Self-portraiture has its own special place in art history, its fascination perhaps being its double-revelation of the artist, as both creator and subject. It is a confrontation with oneself from within or without. Kamin Lertchaiprasert’s papier-mâché sculpture of himself is a small wonder in itself considering the artist has to construct and model himself from all angles (in its three-dimensionality) - the usual practice is to cast the head - but it is smaller than life-size. In "Arm Pit", Bayu Utomo Radjikin analyzes himself as he looks into the mirror and leans against it in a tongue-in-cheek stance and challenges one to come up-close, makes almost a parody of self-portraiture. Chatchai Puipia’s compelling portraits of himself, as well as portraits of fellow Thai artists Warawoot Shusaengthong and Michael, make a strong statement of their presence that can barely be contained within the parameters of the canvas. The challenge of in-your-face Warawoot’s bold stare, Michael’s scrutiny and Chatchai’s own gleeful wide-eyed amazement (or is it a faint-surprised look) makes us acutely aware of our otherness. Not limited by the constraints of semblance and more concerned about what a face can express is Chong Siew Ying’s introspective "Mimpi" - a head tilts back in reverie, gestural brushwork expresses fleeting human emotion and its vulnerability. Working on the same idea of generic portraiture, Kiko Escora instead reduces the figure to bold outlines and flat colour fields in "Me, Me, Me" , in which a woman in a coquettish pose personifies vanity like a signage/pictogram. Here, Escora uses the "portrait" to summarize types and attributes of generic (modern) personalities. The portrait can be used to expose a situation or a relationship, exploring, for example, the characterization or posture of the individual in society. Manit Sriwanichpoom’s photographs of Thai artists Kamin Lertchaiparsert and Chatchai Puipia "stage" the identity of the individuals in relation to their artistic practice. Kamin’s calm, meditative stance alludes to his profound belief in Daoism and Buddhism, which influences his outlook on art and life as inseparable. The painter Chatchai poses after his famous self-portrait painting "The Siamese Smile". Yee I-Lann’s photographic portraits are of three young Malay men who are refreshing alternative voices to the written Malay world: songwriter Joe Kidd, scriptwriter and film director Osman Ali and poet Rahmat Haron. The images of these three men are digitally manipulated to incorporate the texts of song, script, and poem ascribed to each of them accordingly. For example, the poet’s words become his cage and the script becomes imaginary figures. Yee I-Lann constructs the three individuals in image and text compositions to capture the essence of the work in relation to the person. Hari Ho’s luminous photographic portraits of A. Ramasamy, the cleaner, Mah Kum Lin, the tea lady, and Visvanathan, the money lender transcends documentation. They were taken at the Central Market, Kuala Lumpur before it ceased its operation as a wet-market. "The market was to be closed in 1985 and I spent several weeks talking to and gaining the trust of the stallkeepers there before photographing them. Many of the stallkeepers had been there for several generations and the market itself had a heritage of over 40 years by then. Trust, transparency and self revelation are very important to the portraiture I do and for this body of work I chose to photograph in black & white and in a simple, direct and semi-formal manner." In Vasan Sitthiket’s "We Come from the Same Way" series, an ensemble of historical and cultural figures, "bad guys and good guys" of the world, are seen by the artist as all being equal. In this exhibition we see only the "good guys" that are Martin Luther King Jr., Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Khalil Gibran, and Eduard Munch. Taken at face value, Vasan debunks the power of iconic portraiture by pushing them all out of the same bloody womb. Probing beyond physical documentation and using culturally specific icons to suggest the complexities and constraints of inherited social customs and mores, Nindityo Adpurnomo’s "Portraits of Javanese Men" are head shots of Javanese men whose identities are obscured as each of their faces is covered and hidden behind the different styles of Javanese women’s traditional hairpiece commonly known as the konde, a recurring motif in Nindityo’s artwork. Natee Utarit’s small portrait of his mother from the back conveys the sense of familiarity between the subject and artist. Framed by a white border, it becomes a highly intimate and personal portrayal of the person. " I hardly like to paint portraits as they represent apparently the dimension of truth and excessively ingenuous expression. Those attributes of portrait painting make it respected throughout the history of painting. I like to present the truth through painting but I am also fascinated by the passion of truth. I am attracted to its complex form and the dimension of truth because the current surrounding in the society of has Globalization forced me to think and believe that. For me, Portrait Painting is one of the passions of truth which depends more on the interpretation than the record of people's faces with the limited dimension of truth." In his latest works, "Remember Me I, II and III", The Image of Made in China Italian Toy by Thai Painter for Malaysian Gallery series, he poses further questions beyond than simply "Who is in the portrait?". Natee speaks about the "dimensions" of truth - if the portrait of toy Pinocchio lies, will its nose grow longer? |
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