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
KEE THUAN CHYE THUAN CHYE and I have been friends since 1966 when we met in Form 1 at Penang Free School. He was kind enough to contribute two items for the exhibition: a display of his books and a presentation, ‘A Word with You: Readings and a Chat with
‘OFF STONE: Works of journos & ex-journos made after hours or post-career’, Oct 5-17, 2024 at my gallery was, by far, my most ambitious project. I gathered 18 journalists and ex-journalists to exhibit their works and/or make presentations on matters close to their heart. In this four-part series, I
WAITING for others can be stressful, frustrating and infuriating. This is especially so when we have nothing else to do and do not know the length of the wait. There is, in addition, a sense of helplessness. Sociologically, waiting can be linked to power dynamics and inequality, wherein the less
IN MID-2023, Khoo Boo Teik, a close friend from school days, asked me if I could design the cover of his book, Anwar Ibrahim: Tenacious in Dissent, Hopeful in Power. It got me thinking about a few pieces of art for the cover. “Tenacity & Hope” was one of them.
Storytelling
As Behind the Stories was being put together, Kay Tat asked pioneer staff – Tan Boon Kean, Au Foong Yee, Azam Aris, Dorothy Teoh, Chong Cheng Hai and me – to write something about our days at The Edge or theSun that meant something to us. I chose to write about the
Photography
PERUSING KF Choy’s photos, I get the feeling each has travelled a complicated journey with many thoughtful sojourns undertaken by the artist to invigorate or ameliorate its parts — before we are brought to the grand finale. Every piece is reaching out to us; each marriage of form and content
Photography
KF CHOY’S easy-going demeanour belies the intensity and seriousness with which he practises his art. One only discovers how deeply-committed he is by spending time with him, easing out the intricacies of his approach and method. For one, Choy thinks and works in a holistic manner. Clicking his camera
Art
I CONNECT well with whimsical art. It must have manifested from my “other self”, suppressed by a lifetime of serious work and other pressing commitments. True, an innate form of playfulness had been in me all the time but it took the depressing depths of Covid to push mine to
Art
FOR practical reasons, I have used ink and pencil for many of my earlier pieces on paper. When I was invited by Art Voice to join an online exhibition called “Works on Paper”, I quickly chose this one because it was one of the more memorable. I had posted it
Exhibition
WHEN one of my best friends, Lam Yoong Koy, showed me some photos of his trip to Southern Xinjiang last October-November, I thought they were excellent documentary evidence of a region that has engendered much curiosity. I asked if there were more. And indeed there were – some 10,000 of
Exhibition
EARLY this year, when curator Stephen Menon invited me to take part in ArtVoice’s collaborative project with Universiti Malaya called ART+EDUCATION, I quickly agreed. It would be an opportunity for me to put together and share my ideas on two aspects of my life, art and publishing. The
Art
WALTER BENJAMIN, in his essay The Story Teller, bemoaned the decline of traditional storytelling in the modern era. The ancient art of oral storytelling, rooted in direct experience and communal interaction, he believed, was all but gone. Telling stories in his days (1892-1940) was dominated by written literature, especially mechanically-produced
Design
BOO TEIK’S penchant for dissecting the structures of thought and examining the consequential actions of Malaysian leaders and the people around them have resulted in three main publications: one on Mahathir Mohamad, another on an array of issues during the Mahathir era and their implication for the future, and
Photography
I STARTED to read Teju Cole with great reluctance, knowing he may rekindle a feared tendency in me: Getting bogged down in the convoluted thinking of others. Surprisingly however, the premises of his works are straight forward and appealed to me from the get-go, from the time I read Siri
Art
IN 1989 I completed a series of nine pencil drawings, accompanied by 10 sets of draft verses, and called them The Refugee Child. They are about the aftermath of a battle during the Vietnam war, and the journey of a child after the ravages through to his resettlement in a
Art
WHEN Stephen Menon asked me if I wanted to take part in “The Truth Untold” (read here and here), an exhibition featuring Tamil calligraphy, I jumped at the opportunity. It would be a unique experience to explore Indian culture, exchange thoughts on the subject matter and put together some ideas