A friend of mine told me about a Malaysian artist called Yee I-Lann who exhibited one of her artwork in Brisbane art Gallery. The interesting part in her digital imaging artwork is the buffalo. Well, if you travel around Malaysia, not only in Kuala Lumpur, Penang or Johor, you could see buffalo around in ‘kampung’ village area. The connection she put together between the image of PutraJaya building and a buffalo, for me is interesting as it somehow shows the different between the rural and the urban view in Malaysia. Noted that there a flag clearly hanging on the road. This is a common situation in Malaysia, if you drive through in the main cities in Malaysia, flags are everywhere.
Yee I-Lann
Roslisham Ismail make another interesting artwork, a form of collage images that could be seen in most of Malaysian printed material. He also add in words or tag-lines that been chattered everywhere in Malaysia. Images of modernity, independence, Malaysian’s icon such as twin tower and the latest is about Malaysian astronaut. Whether this is an image that are obvious in Malaysian’s eyes or an artist view of what he thinks about the identity of Malaysia.
Roslisham Ismail
“Selamat Datang ke Malaysia” is the first survey of contemporary Malaysian art exhibited in Australia by Gina Fairley. Curator Beverly Yong, of influential organising gallery Valentine Willie Fine Art says, “It plays with the idea of contemporary art as cultural expo. We ask: How would we present ourselves to the world? How are we identified? How far is our real experience¦ a reflection of our ambitions?”