Knots - Faiz Yunus

Knots - By Faiz Yunus. A talented friend. NN Gallery, Ampang.

Perfumed Garden

Perfumed Garden by Rafiee Ghani

Brought to you by Galeri Chandan

If you're a fan of fine art and photography, then you wouldn't want to miss this. It starts from 9th January until the 3rd of February 2012. The opening reception will be held on 19th January. It will include informal talk and discussion on the exhibition.
‘Perfumed Gardens’ features Rafiee Ghani’s four months’ journey to India. He is not a stranger to this land, having travelled to different parts of the land of varied cultures and traditions. This time, he brings home a piece of India to share his journey with art lovers.

For more details log on to Galeri chandan's: Perfumed garden

MARI BELAJAR MELUKIS!! / YOU WANT TO LEARN HOW TO DRAW??!!

For more details please visit
House of art. Don't miss this super great opportunity!!

untuk maklumat lebih lanjut sila layari
House of art. Jangan lepaskan peluang super hebat ini!!

My analogue diary

My video slide of some of my old analogue photos.

KODAK Professional EliteChrome 100

I love the bright blue and greenish tinge on this 35mm film. Perfect for all the analogue and lomo lovers out there!!

LRT Station Taman Bahagia

Public Bus in Bangsar

LRT

visit my flickr page
and don't forget my tumblr

cameras, cameras, cameras!

I still remember the overwhelming joy and excitement when I got my first SLR camera a few years back. It was a Yashica, but I couldn’t recall whether it was from the FX series or the FR. All I could remember is that it had a layer of purple rubber over its body. Unfortunately, it was fairly short-lived. I was in my second semester in a local university, struggling for my art and design diploma and not many who owns an analogue camera. I was one of the few. As a concerned friend, I tend to finish all my assignments early, so that my close friends could borrow my camera. Of course I didn’t want people to think me as a stingy bastard. My big mistake was letting my camera being passed around among friends without my knowledge. I even joked once that my camera was a whore. Finally, it vanished without a trace. And the worst part of it was everyone didn’t have any clue who’s the last person using it, the usual scenario. Strange as it was, I wasn’t that mad. I kind of, just let it go.

Then after a few years, I was on board with the analogue craziness, which seems to take on the local photography culture by storm. It’s the rebirth of analogue photography they said. Out of nowhere, I started to enjoy and appreciate the analogue photography, more than ever. That is when regret and frustration kicked in, to think of my neglecting behavior over my old analogue camera. The market was aware of the uprising, thus, to find an analogue camera with a reasonable price was almost impossible, even the used ones at the flea market. Then after a quite number of persuasions and sweet talks from my friends, I bought a Lomo camera, which was cheaper. So I was on board with Lomo hype. It was a HOLGA 135BC, the “BC” stands for black corners, which the corners of the image will be darkened creating vignettes.

It was fairly easy to use, despite the lens was not aligned with the viewfinder, which I had difficulty to adapt. The first few rolls of films were a bunch of shot that were poorly composed. Then one day, God answered my prayers, I knew He did. I was just accompanying my friend to the second hand store, with no intention to purchase anything, just looking. Both of us were just looking. It was a new store. Destiny put me there; it was the historic day of my life. My eyes caught something in the camera section. On top of the shelves, a Nikon FM10 analogue camera sat there by itself, gazing at me, begging to be picked up. There was another surprise, the price tag showed “RM128” (USD40), way too cheap. Not to mention the favorite model for most of the analogue enthusiasts.

The shop assistant told me it was broken. I almost screamed in frustration. But my heart didn’t give up. I picked it off the shelf. She panicked when popped open the back of the camera to inspect the film chamber. Then she was puzzled and asked me, “owh, is that how you open it?” At that moment I knew she and her colleagues had no knowledge whatsoever about analogue cameras. I tested every shutter speed, aperture, played around the film rewind knob and crank, even took off the lens and replaced it back. I looked at her and said “Yup. She’s broken. But I’ll buy it anyway. I like to collect antiques.” I walked out of the store smiling like a kid walking out of a toy store. There was a quite outcry from my friends who were already visited the store but walked away as soon as the shop assistant told them it was broken. Lucky for me they didn’t check the camera. Like I said, destiny wanted me to find that camera.

From that point, my passion for analogue photography grew stronger as ever. I started to visit the local flea markets if I ever had the chance. After that, I bought two more analogue cameras. They were compact 35mm film cameras. One is manual and the other motorized. Looking forward to get more cameras, and experiment with more films.

Opening Reception: Signs, Symbols and Icons

The “Signs, Symbols and Icons” exhibition was launched last Saturday (23^rd July 2011) to an adequate crowd, which was held at the Galeri Chandan, Bukit Damansara. I was one of the eager patrons who attended the opening reception. The exhibition highlights three young promising artists, Anisa Abdullah, Najib Ahmad Bamadhaj and Hirzaq Harris. Each individual successfully came up with their own rendition and insights regarding the concept of signs, symbols and icons, each with their own methods and techniques.

Marilyn Monroe was an icon during her glorious yesteryears, and that was what Anisa Abdullah is trying to imply into her works, famous and perhaps classic icons. Alongside the famous sex symbol, Anisa also focuses her insights on classic western cars that had been such crazed subjects for most automobiles enthusiastic all around the world. Not to forget, her interpretation on our local famous streets and their stories such as the “Jalan Lebuh Ampang”. The young artist experimented with collage to create forms using used materials, mainly magazines.

On the other hand, Najib Ahmad Bamadhaj’s “Polo” sends a bold yet very subtle message about the differences of classes in a society. As we know, Polo is a sport for the wealthy, and it has become a symbol representing the upper class. The artist tries to demolish this established believe by putting the image of the Polo player on an image of a wall. According to him, a wall is the favored medium for street art, like graffiti, and it represents the lower class. By combining these two, he claimed that he wants to reinforce the belief that everyone and classes should be equal and given the rights to certain privileges.

Most of Hirzaq Harris’ works has been influenced by the classic oriental style, as well as the classic Japanese style painting during the feudal era. There are Chinese symbols and characters written in some of his works, that according to him, those symbols tell the ancient stories and fables of the Chinese folklore. His main focus is the detail drawing of technical diagrams like from an interior of machines, and he applies them inside the images of classic icons and symbols that represent the ancient Japanese and Chinese cultures. These are the dragon, kabuki, samurai and a Buddha. He uses technical pens, acrylics and bitumen on canvas.

The exhibition ends on 29^th July 2011. Another exhibition is on its way this august which entitles “Kalimah” and obviously focuses on Islamic art, which is appropriate with the oncoming Ramadhan. “Kalimah” starts on 10^th of August and ends on 26^th August 2011.

Video on the opening reception will be uploaded soon.

Najib Ahmad Bamdhaj - Polo

Mixed media on canvas

Anisa abdullah - Marilyn Monroe

paper collage on canvas

Hirzaq Harris - Beyond Kabuki

Mixed Media on canvas

Vonnegut’s 8 Rules For Writing a Short Story

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

from the department of light & sound

Signs, Symbols and Icons

Signs, symbols and Icons are visual shorthand for communicating universal concepts with much more richness than words alone. Also culturally, they are considered as values, beliefs and traits that portray certain individuals and societies. They form characters that determine social structure.

There are many descriptions and explanations regarding on signs. Culturally, it can be described as an omen that gives indications of things that will occur at certain place and time in the future, a premonition. Certain cultures around the globe still hold this belief even in this modern era. These omens can be perceived as persons, events, animals, and objects whether it’s man made or natural. For example, in some cultures, the presence of black cats and crows are indication of something bad, or bad luck will occur. Either to individuals or a group of people, it is known as bad omen. Even in our own culture, there are beliefs with the presence of these signs that can lead to certain events in the future. A butterfly inside a house is an omen that someone will visit the homeowner. In terms of communications, forms of signs like hand gestures, images, body movements, scents and sounds can be used to established an understanding between individuals or parties. These sign languages can be directly to the point or delivered with hidden messages that can only be understood by the receivers only. Visually, signs can be used to identify, give instructions and give information to societies. In the field of graphic designs, the effectiveness of signs is very crucial and important to the society. Signage and road signs are good examples of visual signs.

On the other hand, symbols are just like signs, they stand for something but with more layers and richer in meanings. In Greek the word symbol means “image”. They may represent individuals, societies, parties, events, idealisms, moral values or religions. The name of each person on this planet is a symbol representing the individuals themselves. Symbols can appear in many forms, objects, persons, names, places, dates, events, and visual signs. For examples, American actress and singer, Marilyn Monroe was considered as sex symbol during her glorious years. It was her appearance, social life and the people around her that gave the impression of her being a sex symbol. In fact, many of public figures from different eras were considered as symbols to lot of idealism, moral values and certain cultures. Different symbols have different meanings in different cultures. For examples, Ernesto Che’ Guevara was the symbol of hope, resistance, freedom to some Cubans but for the rest of the world, he’s the symbol of terrorism. Visual symbols, like the swastika, it is a religious symbol for the Buddhists, a symbol of eternity but to the fanatics of Nazi idealism, it’s the unconquerable and power. Today, it represents racism and hate. Symbols are perceived differently for different individuals and societies.

Meanwhile, Icons represent something that has sacred significant and values, important, loved, worshipped and followed by certain individuals, cultures, societies, place or a period in history. Most icons that are being followed are mostly important figures and persons. For example, Andy Warhol the icon of pop art that took the 60s era by storm with his avant-garde contemporary art, from paintings to art movies. Even his famous Marilyn Monroe’s print has become an icon for the movement. Both Leonardo Da Vinci and his famous painting Monalisa are both icons of the Renaissance art movement, even until today. It’s hard to exclude these two when mentioning about the movement. Icons give impact. That is how to determine the worthiness of the subjects if ever to be considered as icons, especially in art movements. Not only in art, even other fields, there will always be icons that represent the subjects and followed or loved by individuals and societies, and certainly not just persons, it may be objects or works.

These three act as important elements in human communication and can be described as values and sometimes religious or cultural traits that determine certain individuals, parties and societies. Their existence in art has helped its movement through the ages and gives birth to a lot styles and philosophies.

Galeri Chandan is having an exhibition regarding this subjects.