Viewing Room : Mending Fence; Tales from an Isolation

Artist Statement

This artwork is a personal reflection of the artist towards the current situation of the pandemic that has hit the world, including Malaysia. The work incorporates a form or symbol that is synonymous with the society that connotes hope in every misery we are facing.

Artist Statement

During times of crisis and calamity, we naturally look inwards for solutions, stability, and strength. We gather our resources, internal or external and make our decisions and actions based on our values and principles both as an individual – and as a community and society at large. For this period piece, I’ve gone with a simple ink and wash line drawing technique. I believe the act of drawing is fundamental to all creative work, whether it be in architecture, painting, map making, graphic design and it exists as one of the most basic forms of human communication. As far as visual communication goes, I’m fortunate to have learned and followed great comic book artists in my youth like Todd Mcfarlane, Frank Miller et al.

I’d have never thought that in this lifetime, we’d experience such a pandemic. In times like this, we grasp for hope. That flicker of fire and light that burns in times of darkness. For those that are looking for it – it could be in the simplest of shared camaraderies, friendships and times shared during a personal or collective crisis. For me, I return to 1999 when Malaysia (and Asia) was going through a recession and all we had, were each other – Keeping our fires burning, and keeping one another safe and warm.

The work is also a homage to the people who keep society functioning at its most basic and essential state. Law enforcement, medical staff, the cleaners who keep our streets clean, the artists who keep producing work even in times of crisis, and the everyday men and women who fight to keep the world functioning. It’s my hope that as an intelligent species, we learn from our mistakes and avoid repeating them. For it is usually the darkest before dawn.

Artist Statement

My grandfather has the habit of sitting at the Kopitiam every morning and afternoon. Since the MCO started, he will stand in front of the closed-door staring every morning and afternoon with a cup filled with boiled water, as a substitute for his previous daily routine at the Kopitiam.

Artist Statement

REKLAMADOR

Meaning: A person who always have complaints

As the whole world is facing the COVID-19 pandemic, many of my countrymen are disappointing as they are blinded by prejudice and full of problems to every solution – like the “blind” man in the painting whose mouth keeps on moving despite being restrained.

In the Philippines, our president decided to issue a nationwide lockdown as a way to reverse the epidemic growth. However, people who are corrupt in their way always have something to say. Some objects about soldiers implementing the rules and manning the checkpoints without analyzing the situation. Almost everything that the government, specifically the president, says is given a bad interpretation. Even the mere request of the president for prayers is answered with complaints and hypocrisy by citizens who refuse to be disciplined. Even now, some people don’t follow social distancing; they even rally outside in the middle of a pandemic.

It’s saddening that quarrels and protests in social media are given more attention and health workers and other frontlines are being discriminated against. This is a time when unity in the country, in the whole world, is a must. Right now, our focus should be on our battle against COVID-19 and on doing our part instead of being chronic complainers.

Artist Statement

Red represents the data, info, people, future, memory, spirit, soul, body, anxiety, disease, patient, alert, danger, sadness, and tragedy. Blue represents reality, physical, situation, quarantine, psychology, emotion, pain, now, and discovery. 5 is the fifth day of lockdown, 10 is the deceased victims of COVID-19, tragic. A report from my living room, just stay at home.

Artist Statement

What I imagine if I’m 50 years old and have to do some self-isolate…

Artist Statement

Artist Statement

This is a tribute to all brave women (international women’s month here in the Philippines) In these trying times, we would like to thank the brave women who continue to dedicate their hearts and services for the safety of our community. There are too many heroes to mention. But in celebration of this year’s International Women’s Month, we would like to take this time to appreciate the courageous women who keep the country safe during the COVID-19 crisis.

Artist Statement

Elmo under quarantine explains the importance of quarantine to fight COVID-19. I’m using cartoons as my subject to encourage people to be inside the home. Even cartoon is under quarantine, so should us. I’m putting a little bit of a humorous undertone in my work. I plan to make various cartoon character under quarantine and what did they do when under quarantine based on my imagination. The reason why I painted on the box is during this time I cannot buy canvas so boxes are the only surface I got at home.

Artist Statement

Uncontrollable Factor” is about the phenomenon that most people are so selfish and ignore the movement control during the pandemic. they put their family in danger. In the painting, I reconstruct a figure like a radioactive wave effect to represent the infector factor.

Artist Statement

This year, this month to be exact, I am held captive by the 4 walls of which I call “home”.  Prohibited from leaving the house, I can’t carry daily routines as simple as walking my dog or meeting up with some friends and family. With masks over faces, we are fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic; slowly but surely we will defeat this merciless disease together and free ourselves from this gloomy period.

Artist Statement

Always having to stay in our respective houses for a certain amount of time is not always foreign to us but when we are obliged to lock ourselves inside our doors where we should feel safe and sound, it makes us feel the opposite instead. This piece portrays the restlessness and the chaotic feelings we feel despite staying indoors knowing the outbreak outside is not getting any better. Using rabbits as my main subjects to depict family or people and vulnerability we feel meanwhile red as my dominant color to represent chaos and the uncertainty of what the world holds.

Artist Statement

We as human beings have, in the beginning, done harm to nature. We build more and more buildings out of them just for the sake of our benefits, hence more trees and hills are cut down. The recent virus pandemic is undoubtedly a lesson for us humans, to reflect our bad deeds to nature and to start to preserve and taking care of it. In this artwork, I drew a human body that is used as the vase for the tree, as a symbol of apologising to nature.

Artist Statement

You are avoiding the humans, I am avoiding the virus,

We are avoiding death, Yet, it is everywhere.

I peeped out,

Yet, alert and suspicious.

While it is unaware,

I ran and hid in the darkness.

Stay in, Stay in,

Wherever you are.

A hide-and-seek — all mankind in 2020.

Artist Statement

Outbreak is a sudden occurrence of something unwelcome just happen around the world nowadays, it’s not a thing that we can ignore it, it is a very serious issue. And today, the outbreak is just happening widely spread and fast in our beloved country. I portray the young man just like me, they represent young people that involved in this situation. The social distancing situation happens that makes people away from each other to prevent the virus from spread more widely in the social community. The four same side face portrait (could be anybody) is a meaning of stage or level of the virus spread, from negative to the red zone stage (dying) if the virus unprevented from spread to the body and become worst and more worst until fade away (death). Shredding from solid to a pieces is by meaning an act of cancellation or separation, by the outbreak comes today, it can be of spacing or distancing something or to people that used to be once close to being far. Social distancing struggle is real when I shredded the paper, feeling like cutting the social connections from normal before (just like to prevent self from virus spreading). Shredded paper to a piece reminds me as a glitch looks alike, its show imperfection happens to our social community until the chain of the outbreaks can be disconnected.

Artist Statement

During a week of the MCO, I felt struggle to be productive due to the shortage of materials. One day I saw my father’s t-shirt that has a liquor brand name (Corona) printed on it and expressed my wish to use it as the surface of my drawing. An odd experience indeed as I have to deal with a different understanding of drawing on different surfaces. Most of the images I drew are my family members, where I’m trying to capture the moment of experiencing this occurrence. By some means, doing artworks is about making sure that sanity is still there during this difficult time. Just hang in there everyone!

Artist Statement

‘Castaway On The Moon’, as the title and story essence itself inspired by a Korean movie directed by Lee Hae-Jun, portrays Nik’s self-figured trapped in his house back in Kelantan during movement control order during Covid19 virus outbreak. When he went back to his hometown in Kuala Krai, Kelantan; at first he has no idea that the situation will be getting worse for Malaysia, so he went back one week before Malaysia is declaring the lockdown (Movement Control Order). His initial plan going back to Kelantan was crossing Kelantan – Yala (Thailand) border for a road trip with the family. He got his passport renewed, baggage packed and brought back limited essentials only for the trip. Suddenly, everything turned upside down, all his plans canceled, and he stays trapped in Kelantan without knowing when the situation will become better because the lockdown period is still extending. His movement only in the house during the isolation, like walking back and around on the moon, circulating the same place with almost no art supplies at all except small 4 acrylics tubes, broken brushes and a wasted acrylic white light globe found in the old store. But the artist’s view towards the world must be bigger even the artist staying in a confined space. So he painted fisheye lens view on the globe to make his house space appears bigger. Using an imaginary virus-like character, he painted the creature screaming in suffer, that when everybody is cooperating for staying at home during the outbreak, we did beat the virus for not spreading and ends this lockdown for once and for all.

Artist Statement

‘Castaway On The Moon’, as the title and story essence itself inspired by a Korean movie directed by Lee Hae-Jun, portrays Nik’s self-figured trapped in his house back in Kelantan during movement control order during Covid19 virus outbreak. When he went back to his hometown in Kuala Krai, Kelantan; at first he has no idea that the situation will be getting worse for Malaysia, so he went back one week before Malaysia is declaring the lockdown (Movement Control Order). His initial plan going back to Kelantan was crossing Kelantan – Yala (Thailand) border for a road trip with the family. He got his passport renewed, baggage packed and brought back limited essentials only for the trip. Suddenly, everything turned upside down, all his plans canceled, and he stays trapped in Kelantan without knowing when the situation will become better because the lockdown period is still extending. His movement only in the house during the isolation, like walking back and around on the moon, circulating the same place with almost no art supplies at all except small 4 acrylics tubes, broken brushes and a wasted acrylic white light globe found in the old store. But the artist’s view towards the world must be bigger even the artist staying in a confined space. So he painted fisheye lens view on the globe to make his house space appears bigger. Using an imaginary virus-like character, he painted the creature screaming in suffer, that when everybody is cooperating for staying at home during the outbreak, we did beat the virus for not spreading and ends this lockdown for once and for all.

Artist Statement

This work shows how chaos in the laboratory and medical room where they’re making experiments, dealing with the difficult crucial situation with extra-long working hours. In the artist’s family, his two aunts and uncle serve as nurses and doctors which in charge of treating covid19 positive patients in Kelantan hospital and it wasn’t a new thing for him to know more about their everyday risks in dealing with recent pandemic attacks. This work serves as a tribute to everyone who works on the front line like medical officers, police, army and also respect the people who stay at home in helping to bend the curve.

Artist Statement

This work shows how chaos in the laboratory and medical room where they’re making experiments, dealing with the difficult crucial situation with extra-long working hours. In the artist’s family, his two aunts and uncle serve as nurses and doctors which in charge of treating covid19 positive patients in Kelantan hospital and it wasn’t a new thing for him to know more about their everyday risks in dealing with recent pandemic attacks. This work serves as a tribute to everyone who works on the front line like medical officers, police, army and also respect the people who stay at home in helping to bend the curve.

Artist Statement

1. The work portrays Nik’s self-portrait as a food delivery riders going through the city day and night, in every weather, to deliver the foods and essentials to the people. This work as a tribute to the rise of food delivery services in the whole world during the covid19 season.

Artist Statement

The work portray Nik’s self portrait as a food delivery riders going through the city day and night, in every weather, to deliver the foods and essentials to the people. This work as a tribute to the rise of food delivery services in the whole world during covid19 season.

Artist Statement

Understanding,

Is the essence of distance.

The gap that is making us safe,

Yet, the gap is hard to be silenced,

For we may share the echo of ignorance.

Be it miles or inches,

Mind the gap,

And then,

Mind,

The Gap.