AS I HAVE mentioned, I enjoy the whimsical (read here on “Whimsical Why Not” and here). In art, it manifests as forms like the surrealist portraits in this project. There was no grand intent at the start—just a quick sketch of abstract facial features within a 1:3 rectangle
SHARINI YOGI’S “We need to talk” is a powerful exhibition. Its catalogue captures its essence beautifully, through both images and words—an artist reaching out to us, speaking at a profound emotional level through her work. Sharini’s art can be explored through four key dimensions: (1) It confronts
STEPHEN MENON is a dreamer. He is also a pragmatic and committed visionary, turning aspirations into reality with steadfastness. Not satisfied with being an artist, curator and mentor of note in Malaysia, he aspired to go international too. As an individual artist, he is being invited every year to showcase
IT BEGAN MONTHS ago, when Stephen Menon confirmed that Mastry, an exhibition showcasing Indonesian and Malaysian artists will take place at the famous TonyRaka Art Gallery in Ubud, Bali. It is a ground-breaking cooperative effort among the ArtVoice Collective of Malaysia headed by Stephen, gallery owner Tony Hartawan Anak Agung
CONCEPTUALLY, this is a very old painting – 50 years, from 1975. I was thinking then about solipsism. In a way, the phenomenon traps the mind like a pickle in a bottle, an “achar”, fermenting, transforming within its confined limitations but remaining essentially the same. Claustrophobia mirrors this mental incarceration, in
MY RECENT nine-day trip to Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai in early January has been most fruitful. In Chiang Mai, I was hosted by renowned artist Wattana Wattanapun. I made a presentation on “Art & Storytelling” at his gallery and we went to the galleries of (1) Inson Wongsam and
SOME 50 YEARS after I left formal studies in sociology and anthropology, I am finding the lectures and readings of those days useful in guiding my art. For example, I derived ideas on self-portraits in fragments from Zygmunt Bauman. Now I am exploring Claude Levi-Strauss’s discourse on totemism, part
There was a time from 2002-08 when the nation was at the cusp of consolidating a new media group. theSun and The Edge were at the centre of this movement. But it was not to be. This is an insider story of how theSun developed, and later with The Edge
LAST YEAR was a defining year for Jin’s Art Gallery. My intention was to brand it as a place where art and story-telling meet; the four shows that were held there exemplified its purpose. I also planned each show as I would a publication. The following are some details
TIRED BY the huge mess my old works had become, I sat down over a few weeks in 2016 with my former colleague, Jason Tan, to sort them out. First, along a few themes and then, to write something cohesive about them. Eventually, they took the form of four PDFs.
SHELIA SINGAM AT THE EDGE, Sheila was part of the Options team under Surinder Jessy. They shared the same floor as me and BK Tan so we saw each other often. At the time, I did not know how multi-talented she was. Since then, mainly via her Facebook posts, I
LIM YIN FOONG YIN FOONG joined The Edge shortly after we launched in 1994. I met her there and have been following her work post-Edge too – her evolution from journalism to creative non-fiction. What she portrayed at Off Stone is a small but important and meaningful part of an interesting