In the year 1981, an artist I became

The Digital era 2012 and beyond
To see more of my works and adventres in art online, please follow the links below:
# mygalerimood.blogspot.com

Batik pieces for sale,
early 2000's

In the year 1981, an artist I became.  It has been a long journey and it is not going to stop.  There is however a very important milestone in my passion for art.  It was in Kuching, Sarawak that I decided to celebrate my love for art and poetry in one exhibition.  I organised an exhibition never seen before in the capital city.  In the exhibition, my paintings were displayed together with other poetry works of mine. The poems were stenciled, drawn and and some recorded and the readings played as background sound and music for visitors to the exhibition.  The exhibition was a real success thanks to the great help of my artist friends in Kuching and the Sarawak Museum which provided the exhibition space. My adventures in art started very early while I was in lower secondary school in Bintulu (1963-1966), however it was at Tanjung Lobang College (1967 -1970) that my art training received a firm foundation.  In the 70's I was busy doing further studies at Pulau Pinang but continued to put some of my artistic talents to good use in making shadow play puppets, a minor option I took.  In the university years I found great escape in doing pen sketches of myself in different moods.  In the 80's I concentrated on making batik works which were mainly for sale. In the 1990's I did a few abstracts and this trend continued into the 2000's .  My abstract paintings have one very important thing in common.  The paints I used were left overs which I recycled in the form of abstract works.  When the Internet arrived and the digital age is here to stay, I toyed around with digital art which I called 'rendart' or art rendered digitally.  I am blessed to have acquired the skills of an artist to interpret the world around me and which has made me feel  'an artist at heart'.  Art is a need and I am most satisfied when I can express myself to fill the need  intuitively, intellectually and culturally.

Happy Malaysia Day, Sarawak.

( Note: This is the 10th  post on what it is meant to be a Malaysian as part of my writing contribution to Malaysia Day which will  to be celebrated on the 16th of September.)

1981 - First Solo Art and Poetry Exhibition , at Sarawak Museum, Kuching.
My artist friends and lovers of art who assisted in organising the exhibition.

Exhibition booklet for the first solo exhibition, 15 -17 October,1981.
This booklet is kept by the Library of Congress, follow the link below:-
# https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/search?searchArg=pameran+lukisan+dan+puisi+mood&searchCode=GKEY%5E*&searchType=0&recCount=25&sk=en_US

As a young artist at Tanjung Lobang Beach, Miri. 1968.
At Tanjung Lobang College I received a firm foundation in Art.

At my first solo exhibition in 1981.

Once there was a stall

BDA Exhibition stall fully optimising allocated space, enhanced with new presentation ideas and techniques.

 In 1988 just 10 years after BDA (Bintulu Development Authority) was created as a Sarawak state statutory body, it took part in a state-level development expo held at Kuching.  This was the first time BDA was to expose itself  to the Kuching public and outside visitors of Sarawak  in the form of a development stall exhibition.  I was given the responsibility to coordinate and implement the BDA stall from concept to construction.  I had the best men to do the job.  Fumiaki Izumuda, a landscape architect attached to my Landscaping Division was tasked with the design of the stall.  Hong Seng Teck, an engineer and doing the quantity surveying in BDA was tasked with procurement of relevant materials in Kuching.  Both of them were assisted by electricians, carpenters, painters and general workers from the BDA.  Many novelties were introduced in the stall like the use of large transparencies with light boxes, models and a zoning map or structure plan.  During those times Bintulu was the only town in Sarawak that has a urban Structure Plan.  BDA's participation in the exhibition provided lots of experiences for me in doing exhibitions.  Later, in my days as a contractor I was able to successfully do many exhibitions for the national oil company, Petronas and Sarawak Shell based on my experiences in undertaking three major exhibitions during my BDA days.  The 1988 exhibition however was exceptional for BDA because it provided a platform for  aggressive marketing and branding of Bintulu's potentials to foreign and domestic stakeholders to jointly partake in its industrialization agenda.  Today, in its fourth boom starting in 2010 Bintulu is poised to become an industrial showpiece of Sarawak or Malaysia for that matter.

To see more images of Bintulu before and now, check them out in my other blog here .

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The week-long Development Expo started on 16 September, 1988 ; Opening hours 8 am - 10 pm daily.

Happy Malaysia Day, Sarawak!!

(Note:  On the 16th of September, Sarawak will celebrate its independence being a party to the formation of Malaysia.  As part of remembering history I'll create some posts on what  it means to be a Malaysian as I have experienced it.  Check out the rest of the postings by following this link here.)

Gem of a book

It is a small book,thin and handy. Measuring 12 x 21 cm, staple bounded and printed by Syarikat Yakin Offset Printing Press in Kuching, at a very minimal cost. That book was to inaugurate my first solo art exhibition in 1981 held at the Sarawak Museum ( see inset) . In the book are 7 pages of sketches in pen and ink of the catalogue of paintings that were exhibited during the 3-days art show. I think that the sketches are a real marvel of the book. For many reasons, but principally as indication of the poverty and passion of my days in Kuching in the early eighties. The exorbitant rates for photographic illustration of the paintings absolutely broke my hope for a professional look to the book but somehow I felt images of the paintings on show must be incorporated in the book for guide and posterity. Despite the many late nights before the publication when I heartily drew the sketches the results were well worth it. My shallow pocket was saved the day. However, I am tempted to consider the book a gem because of the inclusion of the painting catalogue rendered in sketches. The exhibition has been one of the memorable adventures in my life. Below are examples:

The book was entitled "Pameran Lukisan dan Puisi MOOD" and can be accessed at the US Library of Congress , National Library of Australia Collection and Yale University Library by just typing the book title in google search . I know not many people will have the chance to grab the book, but thanks to the Internet, I have reproduced the poems and show some of the real paintings depicted by the sketches in another blog called 'my e-poetry book'. The e-book continues my love of English poetry to this day as the online book accommodates newer poems up till 2010.
Indeed the Internet does change the way people communicate. When once dollars and passion were critical in producing a book , it's now just clicks. Today it can be done literally free and you're packaged as editor, printer, publisher, author, photographer, designer ,bookshop and marketer all in one. The Internet has empowered me to grow as a child of the universe and leaving links in cyber space.

The above is the last illustration in the book as a respect to the Sarawak Museum which consented to having me organise the art exhibition in its premise. The art show was a real success but more importantly I now find the sketches a gem of the book.