My Picks: Prudential Singapore Eye 2015

Prudential Eye started out as a program to help, support and promote the art scene around the world. My overall experience with this exhibition is a mix feeling. Some of the pieces I do feel like junks, may be I don't "get it", some give the junkie feel at the beginning, and then I only discover that it is a master piece after a few minutes of gazing and thinking. Some are intimidating and some are just beautiful.

Lets not talk about the junks and mediocre, straight ahead go to the great pieces.

Haslin Ismail's All I Need is Love (2011)

It is wonderful indeed. From a book, came all those wonderful cuttings. This piece was inspired by the birth of the author's first child. I can feel his hope, vision and love he wanted to give to his child. While the piece was installed near the wall, I couldn't have a detail look at the whole installation since the exhibitor forbids visitors to walk into certain grey duck taped lines. This is something I'm not happy about this event organizers

Kei Imazu's Broken Image (2015)

While the description of this paintings in the booklet are largely general. I do see there are some hidden meaning in this painting. That's what makes me excited to see this. What's behind the painting, are images of famous sculptures of religious symbols and idols. They were smudged by the artist, it seems unclear and deformed. It seems more like a representation on modern day religion, where it was smudged unclear and deformed.

Kumari Nahappan's Red Trail Series (2007)

My worst nightmare that I can ever imagine is to pay for a show which display Robert Rauschenberg's white canvases and being told that some museum used peoples' tax money to buy those canvases in huge price tag. Okay, enough of the fear. To be honest, this is the very first feeling I have when I saw this three on the show! At the first sight, I thought those were just plain pure red canvases! Then, I realized that those darker shades are not shadows, it is on the painting. When I took the camera, the magic happened! The bright yellow glow can only be seen on the camera! I read the booklet and the photo they took are just ordinary red tone with very little yellow hue. It makes me wonder how the artist did that?! This is the most misunderstood piece I've ever seen! The piece which makes me enjoy abstract paintings in a whole new level. 

Donna Ong's And We Were Like Those Who Dreamed

I would call this the Pandora's Box, where all the evils had escaped, only left hope inside the box. All the beautiful things inside this box, brings the meaning of "Hope". It is so beautiful! 

Overall, I do have mix feeling on this exhibition. Mainly on the restriction of area to view the art installation in detail. I really annoyed by those grey duck tapes on floor. Hope they will improve the exhibition next time.

It Arrived!

Finally, they had arrived! The materials for my art project! I planned to make a huge overhead installation using these tiny little eyes! Why overhead installation? It has the intrinsic meaning in it. There are eyes watching over us!

It is going to burnt my pocket a big hole! I will need a lot of these tiny little eyes and some lighting design. Since I'm an engineer, I have no problem with the electrical wiring. The problem will be sticking the eyes, millions of it!

I had bad experience working on art installation. One of them is during my secondary school years in Convent Teluk Intan. During the Malaysian Independence day, the school held a classroom decoration competition. I was the leader of the project for my class back then. I lost the competition, but the saddest thing for me is, that I heard the teachers said my decorations had made the whole classroom looked like red light district. It could be due to the red glass paper which I stick on the windows to make an effect of stained glass with our country's flag. 

A true artist will never gave up, no matter how bad the comments and feedback are. Thus, every work is an emotional piece for me. I want to express my deepest emotion through this art installation. I pledge for public donation and support in terms of raw materials and space to exhibit. Please contact me by email: asvoria@live.com if you are interested to support this project.

Project Name: The Eyes of Providence

Form: Overhead Art Installation with Lighting

Raw Materials: Plastic googly eyes in various sizes, glue, light bulbs, wires, support frames... etc

Estimated raw material budget: S$6800.00

Estimated completion deadline: December 2016

A wish of good luck for me is the thing I need most! :D

What's My Next Art Project?

I always wanted a solo exhibition! The problem is, I do not have sufficient art works to exhibit. Something came into my mind is that I should go find all my missing and sold pieces, buy back or rent them for the show. The matter is, some of them, I don't even know where they are now. 

I do have a major project which I had planned ahead of. I had bought all the materials and waiting for it to be shipped to me! Yes, this is my first time using Alibaba.com! I was so nervous, due to the high amount of cons and scams involved. I took the risk anyway. I'm lack of fund to source for the materials and the only solution is to get it from China.

It is going to be an overhead art installation. I don't know where it will be published. Looking for a suitable location and permit to display it might be difficult. Since my style is not heavy in its aesthetic value, it makes it harder to get a permit. 

The value I want to be in my art, is the intellectual value! Something with a meaning. It has to be something that sparks the emotions! I can't wait for my materials to arrive!!! :D Oh, so excited!

Market Trash: 2016 Another Great Depression?

Recently I had been blogging a lot about my personal interests on arts. It's time for me to continue blogging trashes!

It came in suddenly in my mind today morning, I just feel like something is going to happen in year 2016. Mainly inspired by the BBC World Service news about 2016 Presidential Election in United States. Well, I suddenly, just suddenly, something came into my mind out of no where... The new great depression is going to come in end of 2016!

Why? You may ask... it's already happening, that the cheap oil price is now holding it back! If you go to the Google Finance and view on the Nasdaq overall graph, you will get something like the graph below:

So what's wrong with that? It's the change of the President of United States of course! Year 2000, Bush taken over from old Clinton. Of course, one may argue that the market was effected by the Y2K phobia...etc... and bla and bla... How about year 2008 when Obama came in? Another depression! Well, I am not economist, not historian or even expert in the market... not even a citizen of United States... What I'm blogging here is just something spark out of my mind... that it has happened twice, it will happen again! LOL.

The market itself is supposed to be a roller coaster. It is about time for it to fall. The recent cheap oil price had kept the other business profitable. How it could happen? The oil price might have suddenly boom and causing the other business to become not so profitable, thus run into the recession. 

I had a wild dream, that the people keep on pumping up the oil, people keep on storing it, people keep on selling it cheap, cutting costs, trying to win the market... and then suddenly the whole oil field gone by a serious accident that caught blazing flames! And the earth finally burns like the sun! Therefore the Armageddon has arrived! 

Okay, that's all for the trashses! Please be informed that everything in this blog post is just a piece of trash! :D 

Rest In Peace: LKY

I finally found my album in Facebook to grab back the photos I've taken during Singapore Biennial 2013! One art installation that brought me to tears! Happy and Free by Boo JunFeng.

Let's just imagine Singapore never left Malaysia... I just unable to imagine it anymore. As a Malaysian, I remember that I was told that LKY "gila kuasa", "mangambil kesempatan"... etc.. After I grown up, my common sense started to play the major role. Such a small country, such a small land, lack of resources. Water is the most basic resources every human need. Cutting the tie with Malaysia is like cutting the water supply. Whatever historical text. May be it is just for the sake of graduating from school. But the truth will be there, the common sense will guide my mind to the truth.

And because common sense told me so, I respect LKY, he successfully turn Singapore from swamp to a city without the generous help of neighboring countries. I would say that it is still in the 2nd place, since I read about Doha changed from dessert to metropolitan in 30 years...

I totally feel the ideal utopia JunFeng is trying to express. A less stressful Singapore, with more resource, less metropolitan but more relaxed and happy. But the truth is not so "Happy and Free". There are tears... a tear so real that it came from a man who is suppose to be a strong leader.

Good bye LKY... RIP. 

The "Lu" Star and it's meaning? Is it Fertility? Or Status?

During the KLAB + Art for Grabs event, the topic which really strikes my interest is one of the visitor bought up a question regarding the "Lu" star (禄星), the source which inspire the Fertility painting in the Triptych. Well, it was a good discussion. I have to admit that I don't really know about the history and polytheistic believes of Chinese people.

After the event, I had done some Baidu research on the topic (to find the most accurate info related to Chinese, Google is not the choice of search engine), and found out that the original should have total Five deities representing different values. 福禄寿喜财. The five values stands for Fertility, Status, Longevity, Happiness, and Prosperity. It is confused enough since the Chinese folklore were documented in various versions and the Chinese language character alone, reflects various meaning. For example, "Fu" 福 , translated as Blessing, It also have the same pinyin as the word 富，which means rich and abundant. The original meaning of "Fu" should be the blessing of fertility. Where in the old days, Chinese people believed that being fertile is a blessing. However, today, we normally see "Fu" as prosperity. 

Thus, as a conclusion, the visitor is totally right! "Lu" (禄) represent status and authority. Although today, it could be the one hugging the baby. I also found out that Japanese also believe in these values, and they were represented by one deity. 

I have to declare that I believe in no deities! I see the values as important elements of living. Creating a deity to represent the values are such a confusing idea. Which deity should hug the baby? It  does not mean anything to me. As I believe all blessings, prosperity, fertility happiness, authority or statuses are given by one God who created me. That's why my paintings are just for a CNY decoration. They should not be seen as the deities at all. They represent the values and how to achieve them by hard work. If the paintings make anybody think that they are representing the deities, I shall burn them to ashes! 

So far, I really love this triptych because they brought up lots of discussion and thoughts.

My Exhibition @ Art For Grabs 2015

Finally have time to blog about the event! The overall experience is good, but a bit disappointed by the blocking of the path. The police denied the public entry into Dataran Merdeka area due to fear of protest! 

I am glad and happy that I finally done my first "joint exhibition"! Yes! Joint exhibition means there are other artists in the same event! Although I only have the triptych for show, it was a fun experience! I am so so so so so happy to see people laugh, smile, shocked and disgusted by my paintings! Yes, the details on the porcelain pots are the key to all the emotion and laughter. 

I have made some copies of this booklet to be given for free during the event. To share the ideas is my main objective of the show. I didn't really "sold" the triptych, it should be "given" to a private collector. An art work is like a child for the author, and I am happy that my "child" now is on the hand of a good owner. May be later when there's another art event in KL, I will be able to bring them out again for show!

The things I grabbed 2 pottery work of Caeman Loo. They look gorgeous! Very rustic and handmade feel! Unique in a way that it is different from the machine made items which we saw every day in the market. Yet, it is not a rough job. I bought the lamb just because it is cute. 

Siri Beg Kertas: Doodle dan Puisi

The other thing I grab is the zines from Doodle Malaysia's booth. The reason I love this zine is just because of the cover art! I have to admit that I'm lack of the Malay language skill to fully appreciates the poems in the zine, but for sure I'm able to appreciate the great art piece on the cover by Rizal. All the monsters burst from his head... Monsters are with different expressions, depicting different emotions and imaginations, and they were pictured in such a cute and cuddly way. The overall illustrates that the author was so nervous, no longer able to hold the monster from bursting our of his head. It is beautiful!

Other interesting activities in the event, would be the on the spot doodling. It is fun to see talented people gather around and express their artistic ability! 

Although I personally thinks that there are room for improvement. I surely join the next Art for Grabs! Wish to see more artists in the future.