21 Nov Presence
As the year comes nearer to a close, Artemis Art is pleased to announce our final exhibition for 2016, Presence.
The exhibition showcases the combined works of ten Malaysian visual artists, each with her or his own individual style, expressing important aspects of life as each individual sees it. A mix of young, emerging, and established artists, the 10 participating artists in Presence are
- Ajim Juxta
- Dennis Liew
- ERYN
- Haris Rashid
- Jasmine Kok
- Nik Mohd Hazri
- Ruzzeki Harris
- Syahbandi Samat
- Viko Zhijune
- Yasmeen Cheong
Included in this line-up are four award-winning artists, the honors representing important milestones in each of their respective careers, won either in Malaysia or abroad: Ajim Juxta, ERYN, Ruzzeki Harris, and Syahbandi Samat.
Presence begins on Friday, November 25 2016, and continues until the end of 2016 on December 31. The start of the exhibition also coincides with Gallery Weekend Kuala Lumpur (GWKL), which Artemis Art is one of the participating galleries.
10:00 am on Sunday, November 27 2016 at Artemis Art
As part of Presence, we will be holding an artist talk, featuring emerging award-winning visual artist Ajim Juxta.
2016 has been a tremendously successful year for Ajim Juxta, his fifth year of practice since deciding to become a full-time visual artist.
He was one of the top three winners in this year’s Young Art Awards in Taiwan’s premier art fair focused on young artists, Young Art Taipei, the first Malaysian artist to have won this award. He is also one of the recipients of the 2016 Young Guns award, recognizing the achievements in his visual art career thus far.
Ajim Juxta, Arcology: Convergence (2016), Acrylic, Indian Ink & Pen on Canvas, 122 x 122 cm (this is the award-winning artwork that paved the way for Ajim to receive the top 3 places for this year’s Young Art Award, at Young Art Taipei 2016)
The primary focus of this artist talk will be Ajim Juxta sharing his experience of attending a residency program in Taiwan, which the prize awarded for being one of the top 3 Young Art Award winners. Included will be a Q&A session at the end of the talk, allowing the audience to interact with Ajim.
For more information and to RSVP, kindly visit the Facebook event page that we have set up for the art talk.
How we look at life differs from one individual to the next. Some live for the moment, others more carefully craft each step with the future in mind. Many reminisce to understand the past, with the hope this understanding helps them navigate the future.
Presence brings together artworks by 10 Malaysian visual artists, each with her or his own way of looking at life, each focusing on one of the three chronological states of being – the past, the present, or the future. Regardless of which state of being holds most interest for each artist, ultimately what is expressed is the now.
Whether we realize it or not, our current state of being – our present – has a great influence on how we see the past, and how we postulate the future. Featuring the works of young, emerging and established artists combined in one showing, Presence is also a demonstration of each artist’s endeavor in creating their own visual language, hence carve their own unique “presence” in the Malaysian visual art world, one that grows more complex, interesting, and varied with the passage of time.
Participating Artists
An architect by training, Ajim Juxta is the artist’s name for Raja Azeem Idzham Raja Azham, one of this year’s Young Art Award winners at Young Art Taipei 2016.
This exhibition will feature works from his Arcology series, one that questions where mankind as a cilivilaztion is headed. A portmanteau of ‘architecture’ and ‘ecology’, arcology is a theoretical architectural construct that envisions all imaginable human activity within a self-contained, all-encompassing megalithic structure. Using this concept, combined with observations of current day society, the impact of communications technology, and an imagined trajectory of where humankind might head, Ajim envisions a somewhat dystopian future in this series of works.
As part of the exhibition program, Ajim will be holding an artist talk at 10:00 am on Sunday, November 27, where he talks about his career and his work, with a focus on sharing his experience attending a residency program in Taiwan, which is the prize awarded for top the three Young Art Award winners.
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As part of Artemis Art’s work championing talented individuals with Learning Difficulties, Dennis Liew is an artist whose first solo exhibition was staged by us back in 2014. Dennis is afflicted with Asperger Syndrome, a high functioning disorder that falls within the autism spectrum.
Combining the techniques of Chinese ink and brush art with elements of European post-impressionist pointilism, Dennis has arrived at a style he calls Fusion Revivalism. Using this style, Dennis Liew creates his utopia – lush landscapes where undisturbed flora and fauna flourish, awash in a sense of beauty and peace.
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ERYN is the artist name used by Winnie Cheng, an emerging Malaysian visual artist who was the 2015 UOB Painting of the Year Emerging Artist Gold Award winner.
She uses a combination of pen and ink drawing, watercolor, acrylic painting and papercutting techniques to create meticulously detailed compositions filled with strange creatures in an otherworldly setting. Her art deals primarily with themes of introversion and self-discovery, reflecting on the experiences and interactions she has in her daily life.
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The most senior artist featured in this exhibition is Jasmine Kok, who we have featured in a few group exhibitions in the past, and who was one of the three artists shown by us in this year’s inaugural Singapore Contemporary Art Show.
As a person, Jasmine often describes herself as someone who is very tactile, who loves making things with her hands. It therefore is no surprise that sculpture would become her primary chosen form of artistic expression. Her artworks have transitioned from those surrounding her dealing with personal physical pain, to works that are more spiritual in nature.
The two sculptures included as part of this exhibition are recent works from 2016, where Jasmine’s inner spiritual self is transposed into the two stone pieces, one dealing with balance, and the other a tribute to motherhood.
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Adept at the use of different mediums in his art, Haris Rashid is a visual artist who is not afraid to experiment, and doesn’t confine his paintings to the traditional canvas, preferring instead to use other more textured surfaces, such as wood panels.
In recent year, wild animals have been the visual focus for this young artist, using the imagery of these beasts to convey deeper meanings that are, more often than not, really about us – humans. His second solo earlier this year, Humanimal, centered on humanistic traits Haris found in the animal kingdom, using them as metaphors to express ideas and thoughts about society at large.
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Nik Mohd Hazri is the eldest of the three Nik Brothers, a talented trio that has emerged as three visual artists to watch out for.
Back in 2014, Hazri participated in two group exhibitions with us, namely Prologue and Carbon, staged by the collective he belonged to at the time, Intuitive Art Group. At the time, Hazri was still a student in the process of completing his bachelor degree. His works are visually stunning, and at a relatively young age he has already proved himself to be an accomplished figurative artist.
“… dan dia pun berpaling” #2 that has been included in this exhibition is part of a series of artworks from 2014. It deals with the psychology of etiquette in Malay culture, where nuances and feelings might not be outright shown, but may still be surmised from body language.
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Pop surrealism is the visual conduit emerging artist Ruzzeki Harris has chosen to express how he feels about the world around him. An astute observer, his pointed visual criticism is often based on personal experience.
The four artworks shown in this exhibition are part of his recent Possessed series of paintings, a critique on current youth trends fuelled by the proliferation of mobile gadgets, items that have become a ubiquitous part of modern 21st life. Five works from this series were shown recently as part of our participation in Art Taipei 2016, three of which have been included in Presence, plus one new work, Narcissus, exhibited for the first time.
Ruzzeki, in our view, is certainly one of the emerging Malaysian artists to look out for in coming years, and Artemis Art is certainly honored to have had the opportunity to work with him, and look forward to showing more of his works in time to come.
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Among the artists that Artemis Art has worked with is award-winning self-taught artist Syahbandi Samat, well-known for his ballpoint pen on canvas works. We first showed his works as part of our group exhibition Vice Versa, held in Yogyakarta this year, as part of the Jogja Art Weeks program that complements ArtJog.
In our view, what sets Syahbandi Apart from many other self-taught artists is the strong emphasis on aesthetic content in his works, in addition to only showcasing skill, characteristic of many autodidact visual artists.
“Wallflower“, included in this exhibition, is a piece that deals with insecurity and introversion. For Syahbandi, many introverts actually have very interesting personalities, waiting to be discovered, provided the communication barrier can be broken. Already recognized in 2012 as a talent to watch by virtue of him being selected as one of the five Malaysian Emerging Artist Award winners, Syahbandi is a young visual artist whom we think will go far, and we look forward to working with him more in the coming years.
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Personal introspection forms the basis of inspiration for the works of young Viko Zhijune, who views art as being therapeutic, as she continues to develop her visual language, and at the same time discover herself.
A recent graduate of Dasein Academy of Art here in Kuala Lumpur, Viko’s works presented in this exhibition combine figurative and abstract elements, complemented with the use of found objects, and burn marks. What she intends to express can often be surmised by the titles she gives her works, one of the more introspective artists that we have had the opportunity to work with.
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Portraitures done primarily in charcoal are the mainstay of Yasmeen Cheong, a young artist from Kuala Lumpur, and a recent graduate from Dasein Academy of Art.
While quite known previously for her portraits of individuals in need of care, primarily residents of old folks homes, Yasmeen’s focus has recently shifted towards the psychology of persons closer to her own 20-something age group, often tumultuous times of self-discovery for most individuals. Her works express much uncertainty and anxiety, based on her own observations of people around her.
We’ve all gone through those difficult years of our twenties, and can fully identify with the soul-searching and self-questioning that have been visually transferred by Yasmeen onto the canvas. It’s a stage of life everyone goes through as we find our calling, and craft our path to navigate the many years ahead.
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