Reading, 2009
After Henri Fantin-Latour’s “La Lecture”, 1877

The Charity Lady, 2009
After Jean-Baptiste Greuze’s “La Dame de Charite,” 1775
TOP TO BOTTOM, from (“Days Of Our Lives“)
© Wong Hoy Cheong, 2009

Wong Hoy Cheong is a contemporary artist who uses video and photography to bring up discourses on social issues. Born in Penang, Malaysia, he has exhibited widely in Asia and Europe.

In Days of Our Lives, he explores the idea of identity dilution in modern Europe. He reconstructs classical European paintings with models from Europe’s former non Judeo-Christian colonies in Africa, Middle East and Asia. The typical domestic scenes of Old Europe are infused with characters that seem to blend in, yet appear oddly out of place at the same time.

While these paintings are of the past, their topicality and emotions are still as resonant and relevant today…The Judeo-Christian Europeanness of another epoch gives way to a new fluidity and diversity. The past lives in the present, and the present in past as domiciled and naturalized migrant minorities reconstructs a new Europeanness for this century.

View more of this series here. Click here to read an interview on his older works.

The theme for this year’s CUT is Figure and once again, we are treated to an insight to Southeast Asia’s photography scene.

From the press release:

Artists featured in CUT09 are on the forefront of highlighting the problematics of representation in photography. Instead of subscribing to the belief that identity is a fixed and stable given, their subjects often defy easy catergorisation. These figures stand defiant against the cookie-cutter images of our contemporary environment, offering a window into and mirror of alternative reinvestments of the body as a site on which notions of selfhood (both individual or collective) are questioned, contested and at times, revised.

ABOVE, Blind Rash from (“Shooting Blanks”)
© Gina Osterloh

Featured artists include many familiar names (featured on the site or acquaintances of mine): Agan Harahap, Davy Linggar, Diana Lui, Genevieve Chua, Gina Osterloh, K Azril Ismail, Maitree Siriboon, Manit Sriwanichpoom, Melati Suryodarmo, MM Yu, Ohm Phanphiroj, Timur Angin, Wawi Navarroza, Yee I-Lann. The website contains a sample of the photographers’ works.

The exhibition would be showing at Valentine Willie Fine Art in Kuala Lumpur from Feb 4 to Feb 21, VFWA Singapore from Apr 29 to May 17 and finally Manila Contemporary from Jul 18 to Aug 8.

TOP TO BOTTOM, from (“Anima“)
© Flanegan Bainon, 2008-2009

Somehow, I particularly like the subjects’ awkwardness. It’s a work in progress and there is promise. Visit his blog to see more of the series.

Time out!

Will be going up to Kuala Lumpur for a few days tomorrow. I’m attending an opening on Wednesday and generally be chilling out for the rest of the week. I’m available if anyone wants to do coffee/beer, drop me a mail!

(Sorry for the bad scan. Paid the lab to give me something quick. I need to save up for a better scanner!)

I met Eiffel last week at the SIPF Workshop where he showed some images from his work in progress, A Matter of Life and Death. The images were shot in large format and I would love to see the prints. A good example of why the screen may not be the best way to view photos.

a promise that couldn’t be fulfilled, from (“a matter of life and death“)
© Eiffel Chong, 2008

a trace of mortality, from (“a matter of life and death“)
© Eiffel Chong, 2008

mathematical equations with emotional contours, from (“a matter of life and death“)
© Eiffel Chong, 2008

Eiffel’s work is an intellection distillation of Malaysia’s banal landscapes and interiors. His work points towards life and death in a non-fatalistic manner. Instead, he is interested in how the photographic medium can translate a particular time and space, memories and thoughts into something permanent. I personally think that the images say more with less, and makes one just want to stare and think about it. I’m reminded of Dan Holdsworth’s work. Looking forward to meeting Eiffel again the next time I head up to Kuala Lumpur.

Visit Eiffel’s website to see his other works. this used to be my playground is another series worth looking at.

Valentine Willie Fine Art Gallery will be holding Cut: New Photography From South East Asia from 13th Feb to 1st Mar.

This groundbreaking exhibition of emerging photography from the Southeast Asian region focuses on young artists and the range of approaches to photography coming up now. A younger generation of artists and photographers is probing the tremendous potential of photography, exploiting its powerful associations with memory, voyeurism, identity, exoticism, truth and illusion. CUT brings together a sense of how photography is emerging as a discipline, or base medium in contemporary art from Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.

Currently the line-up of 12 participating artists includes artists who work with photography as part of their practice such as Montri (Thailand), Poklong Anading (Philppines), Lena Cobangbang (Philippines), and Angki Purbandono (Indonesia), as well as artists who are focused more purely on photography such as Steve Tirona (Philippines), Sharon Lam (Malaysia), Tino Djumini (Indonesia) and Sherman Ong (Singapore).

The website contains interviews and images by the participating photographers.

The gallery’s located at 1st Floor, 17 Jalan Telawi 3, Bangsar Baru, 59100 Kuala Lumpur

Free Burma

Yee I-Lann was born in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, East Malaysia in 1971 to a New Zealand mother and Sino-Kadazan [2] father. She identifies strongly as being Sabahan. She grew up with stories of Sulu, the land on the opposite shore to her home. They are shared stories of the sea, caught in trade, piracy, Muslim culture and allegory, uniting people and histories across waters stretching to the Philippines. It is a zone of intersections, where British, Spanish and Dutch colonialism abutted; where animism, Islam and Catholicism collide, and where borders remain volatile and in contention to this day. The Sulu region, effectively, presents a metaphor to broader global issues.

© Yee I-Lann

© Yee I-Lann

© Yee I-Lann

I-Lann is represented by Valentine Willie Fine Art Gallery.

© Johny Kok – Pool

Apologies for not digging deeper but the results for Malaysia@50 were actually released 2 weeks ago. Read the press article.

The Malaysian landscape teems with life waiting to be captured by that intuitive camera held by both young and old. The shutterbugs wandered through the neighbourhoods they grew up in and villages tucked out of sight from the busy highways. They scoured the brightly lit roads of major coastal towns and the idyllic countryside.

© Lee Yun Ni

A 300-page book has been published with the winning entries. A catalogue has also been produced with writings by Khairul Harzin Hashim, Li Hsian, Khadijah Khalid, Dillion Daniel, Azrul K. Abdullah, Nikt Wong and Sherman Ong. Both the catalogue and hardcover coffeetable book will be available from Aug 16 at The National Art Gallery Malaysia.

Our country marks 50 years of nationhood next year and in anticipation of that milestone, we invite Malaysians to take out their cameras to capture the Malaysian way of life. We want to show ourselves at work, at play, at school, at the beach, at the mall, at home, anywhere and everywhere.

The organizers are releasing a compiled book of the winners by Malaysia’s national day on Friday. More on this when results are released publicly.