Celebrating a decade in art

Since opening its doors in 2002, art gallery owner Lim Wei Ling and her eponymous Wei-Ling Gallery have been growing, albeit not without its own struggles.

And to celebrate a decade in business, Wei-Ling Gallery is launching several initiatives beginning with Bright Young Things — a mixed-media exhibition featuring 10 local up-and-coming artists at its gallery in Jalan Scott, Kuala Lumpur.

In addition, a Decade Shutter Mural, located right next to the gallery, will see the 10 young artists as well another 10 of the gallery’s more established artists painting their ideas onto bare metal shutter doors.

Energetic: Up-and-coming artists proud of the canvas they created to celebrate the gallery’s milestone.

At the same time, a coffeetable book will be launched with support from United Overseas Bank, documenting some of the gallery’s most important artworks made over the decade as well as developments. The book is unsurprisingly titled A Decade of Collecting.

“The 10 emerging artists in Bright Young Things are those in the Malaysian arts scene who seem ready to take on the world, and have displayed their integrity as artists,” said Lim. She added that it was an interesting contrast as the contemporary arm, Wei-Ling Contem-porary in The Gardens, was holding Timeless.

“Timeless is an exhibition by our established artists. The theme is to show that the art they produce can withstand the test of time, so it is a good contrast between young and established artists,” she added.

The younger artists are also not afraid to experiment with different mediums in presenting their art, such as Yim Yen Sum, 25, with her work Falling Raindrops. Using fabric as her preferred medium, Yim collated a number of photographs snapped from travelling across the country and printing them in colour onto paper.

Life’s passion: Lim showing several artworks at the event.

“I transferred the images to the fabric via ironing, and sewed them into the tube shapes you see to resemble raindrops. The inspiration comes from the continuous circle of life, and how raindrops keep succeeding each other. It is like a circle based on experiences and memories,” Yim explained.

While Yim’s artpiece was one of the more unusual exhibitions at Jalan Scott, there are other pieces which pique interest, such as Sean Lean’s White Bull and White Alligator, rendered in oils. Both pieces also come with interesting subtitles such as “I promise deer; This is the last time” for the latter.

Some may find Dhavinder Singh’s four-canvas artwork a little disturbing. A graphic designer by day, Dhavinder, 29, wanted to produce something that provoked thoughts about the subject matter, such as a goat contemplating a skinned goat’s carcass, or a bear seemingly invading a deep-sea fish’s space. “You can call it twisted if you like, it is a good description in fact,” said Dhavinder. Eschewing manual techniques, Dhavinder used his graphics background and created the pictures using the computer instead.

By contrast, Ruzzeki Harris, 28, used six mechanical pencil graphite shafts and two 6B pencils to draw his pop culture and socio-political commentary piece. “If you observe, there is a trumpet and a loudspeaker with tongues protruding from the bells, on both sides of the canvas. “You get the idea of a lot of noise and sound. It is a lot of confusion, similarly with the set of teeth in the middle with the tongue as well. “That is to symbolise noise, but ultimately nothing concrete. The pop culture elements can be seen such as the cartoon figures and the colours of the oil paints used,” Ruzzeki said.

Visitors to the Jalan Scott gallery have much to view beyond the mural or the artists interviewed in this article, as there are other painstakingly-created pieces such as Wong Chee Meng’s Parellel Event — an acrylic piece on medium dense fibreboard with the white coloured subjects carved to stand out against the multi-coloured background.

“The Malaysian arts scene and industry has really progressed. We are seeing artists moving on beyond commercial art and producing art for its own sake, because they believe in their art,” Lim concluded.

-thestar online.