Lost in Paradise - The quest for a Malaysian Artistic Identity

Mohamed Najib bin Ahmad Dawa Sang Nagahari (Hari Kelahiran yang Dinanti-nantikan)



In the poem Travelling far Muhammad Haji Salleh remarks that “if you want to scale mountains you must follow the soul, bypassing cities and forests” and “desolation is the prerequisite of ambition dreams are the programmers of reality”. Muhammad Haji Salleh suggests that artistic achievement and progress originates in introspection, reflection and investment in imagination. Muhammad Haji Salleh echoes the cries of western Modernism for innovation in art - new terrains with radical forms of artistic endeavour.

Suzi Gablik indicates that Modernism has, in fact, run its course and it, along with post-Modernism, is rapidly becoming static, redundant. Gablik recognises that the soul of modern art is becoming lost amidst the clamber for innovation, or as Robert Hughes mentions, it ceases to shock and becomes just another a damp squib - not the pyrotechnic splendour it had once promised.

Since Plato it has been acknowledged that art, to a greater or lesser degree, is mimetic, derivative – a re-configuring of the previously extant with a dash of innovation and a peppering of imagination to transform the old lamp to the new. It is through copying, mimicking that we learn – the student spends hours tediously observing and copying from the master, inquiring into every brush-stroke, the mix of the palette, until finally he/she is able to master the old knowledge and move on. Usually the mirroring stage is relatively short lived, left behind to free the artist’s soul and enable his dreams to prosper innovative reality.

Despite a full half century of artistic endeavour emanating from its federated states, merdeka (independent) Malaysia continues to be captivated by western ideology - still mesmerised by Eurocentric concepts of Modernity and Modernism. Malaysia continues to struggle in its discovery of its artistic soul, Malaysia remains in historic and contemporary bondage to a western ideology it had claimed to renounce.

Though the 300 year old shackles of western physical dominance were cast from Malaya in 1957 and a fresh identity sought through the founding of the federated states of Malaysia (1963) Malaysia continues to be psychologically enslaved to imported artistic ideologies.

The barely post-nascent Malaysia projects its multi-racialism, multi-ethnicity, and diverse theologies, citing a ‘unique’ mix of Malays, Chinese, Indians and semi-indigenous races (collectively known as the Orang Asli - aboriginal peoples), as well as a historically constant influx of peoples from surrounding Indonesia. Malaysia endeavours to project an illusion of peace, harmony and unity of vision amongst its races.

When it comes to art, however, no single prominent style, or school of art distinguishes itself in Malaysia. No one uniquely authentic mode, method or approach to art could be singled out to be championed as The Malaysian Art - until recently.

Admittedly the concept of a national style or school of art may in itself be anachronistic in the 21st Century, yet countries like South Africa (art of the townships), Mexico (Rivera, Kahlo etc), even the small island of Haiti (Hyppolite, St Brice, Liautaud) may lay claim to uniquely individualised styles of art be they modern, contemporary or traditional.

It has been argued that art and its history belonged to the West. Mary Anne Staniszewski writes that the present concept of art is that of the modern era, a construct, a terminology coined to include, or reject, “…..objects and fragments and buildings…appropriated by our culture and transformed into Art.”

Western Culture has for many ages ‘borrowed’ items from other cultures imbuing them with western meaning and re-defining them as its own – Pablo Picasso’s appropriation of African mask imagery and Carlo Buggatti’s Middle and Far Eastern borrowings spring immediately to mind.













Pablo Picasso and African mask

Bugatti furniture

The history of art was the history of Western art, it was a self determining Eurocentric creation. Susan Buck-Morss has mentioned “The History of Art ……. has treated art and Western art as nearly synonymous. “ That is to say that both modern art and its history have been fundamentally Eurocentric in the past.

This is no longer the case. During the later part of the 20th Century, art and its histories went pan-global. A renaissance in the production of modern art in many countries outside of Europe and North America meant that art could no longer be so narrowly defined as a Eurocentric phenomenon, but global and eventually multi-cultural. Buck-Morss remarks that definitions and theories of art have opened up “It now includes philosophies of art from Hegel to Derrida. It has expanded creatively to encompass non-Western art and new media art, and it addresses the visual cultural context of artworks in a multidisciplinary way.”

Colonial powers spread colonial ideas. During the first half of the 20th Century ‘modern’ art was beginning to be recognised outside of Europe and North America, primarily in Latin America with artists such as Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and Frida Kahlo.

From the Dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz to the Revolution—The Revolutionaries _ David Alafaro Siqueiros 1957-65

Redza Piyadasa explains that the British, unlike other colonisers such as the Spanish (Philippines), and Dutch (Indonesia), were tardy in their setting up of art, as a subject, in schools in Malaya, and that it was not until 1924 that art became examinable for the Cambridge School Certificate.

Piyadasa observes that the British seemed reticent to encourage the arts in Malaya unlike the Dutch in the East Indies (later Indonesia) with their governmental encouragement of Redan Salleh (1807 – 1880) - the first notable Indonesian modern artist, or the approval given to the Academia de Dibujo (1845), in the Philippines, by their Spanish colonisers; later to become the first academy of art in the Philippines – the School of Fine Arts, Quiapo, Manila.

That is not to say that modern art was not practiced in Malaya while it was still a British colony. Redza Piyadasa suggests that the origins of a Malaysian modern art may be found during 1920s Malaya with artists such as Low Kway Song (born 1889) in Malacca, Yong Mun Sen ( born 1893) in Penang and the former Sri Lankan immigrant O.Don Peris (born 1893) then living in Johore. These artists were joined later by collectives such as the United Artists of Malaya (1929, Selangor) and the Penang Chinese Art Club (1936, Penang).

King of the jungle - Low Kway Song 1917

Morning Mist - Yong Mun Sen 1951

Piyadasa contends that modern art prospered in Malaya despite colonialism and British rule while in one paragraph in On Origins and Beginnings mentions “It is noteworthy that the first Western-influenced Malay artist of significance to emerge was Abdullah Ariff, who only appeared during the 1930s; he was born in the Straits Settlements, went to an English school and became an English school teacher in Georgetown, Penang. Abdullah Ariff epitomised a new “modern” Malay artist.”

Pemandangan - Abdullah Ariff 1954

Piyadasa makes the point that many of the emerging artists of the pre-war years were schooled in English Malayan schools and later were employed as teachers in those schools. O Don Peris, mentioned earlier, had even studied in France - at the Academie Gereux, in Paris before settling in Singapore, then a British Crown Colony, in 1920.

Unsurprisingly early Malaysian modern art echoes that of their western colonisers, featuring subjects such as landscapes; examples of this being – Rock Forms, Penang, 1941 by Lee Cheng Yong, Coconut Plantation – Dawn, 1948, Abdullah Ariff, Coconut trees, 1951, Yong Mun Sen and Breezy Day, undated, by Khaw Sia.

Rock forms Penang - Lee Cheng Yong 1941

Western style figurative painting too began to grow, despite obvious difficulties involved with the national religion – Islam and its discouragement of the use of the human figure in art.

Following modern, Western, artistic trends works such as Portrait of my wife in her wedding dress, 1933, O.Don Peris, Girl Pounding Padi, 1959, Mohd Hoessein Enas, At the Kampung Shop, 1959, Mohd. Sallehuddin, Memujuk, 1958, Cheong Laitong and Admonition, 1959, by Hoessein Enas may be seen as a testament to the eagerness of Malaysian artists to emulate those of the West.

sukiyaki - mohamad hoessein enas 1951

village shopping Mohd Sallehuddin 1959

Western artistic/cultural values became inculcated into many Malaysian artists through a western art training. One of Malaysia’s foremost artist/art historians Redza Piyadasa studied art at the Hornsey College of Art, in London, from 1963 to 1967, as did his contemporary Sulaiman Esa. Esa subsequently studied in Paris, France.

Before them Lai Foong Moi studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts from 1954 to 1958, in Paris, France, while Chia Yu-Chian studied in Paris on Lai Foong Moi’s return. Cheong Laiton studied under an exchange scholarship at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine, in the United States of America from 1960 and Abdul Latiff Mohidin completed his art studies in Berlin, Germany, at the Academy of Fine Arts, West Berlin, from 1960 to 1964 - at this time Jolly Koh, a Singaporean, completed his studies from 1960 to 1964 at the Hornsey College of Art, London.

still life with wine jugs Chia Yu Chian 1967

Patrick Ng Kah Ohn studied in England at the Hammersmith College of Art from 1964 to 1966, and Mohamed Hoessein Enas took a one year study trip to England. Ibrahim Hussein studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, London, from 1963 to 1966 and won a fellowship for a year’s study in New York and the list goes on.

Manja Ibrahim Hussein 1960

Due to their western art training many Malaysian artists appear to have produced an over abundance of pseudo western 20th Century modern art, typified by the overt presence of practitioners of a Abstract Expressionistic art such as Latiff Mohidin, Syed Ahmad Jamal and Yeoh Jin Leng. Even that Malaysian artistic icon Ibrahim Hussein spent many years producing acrylic abstracts before engaging in a range of figurative works, which incorporate elements of the organic abstract.

pago pago Abdul Latiff Mohidin 1964

From the early Malayan landscape paintings of Yong Mun Sen, Lee Cheng Yong, Abdullah Ariff and Kuo Ju Pin through to the Malaysian Nuevo Avante Garde object d’art and paintings of Redza Piyadasa and Sulaiman Esa, western concepts and categories of art dominate Malaysia. It is not enough simply to replace western imagery with eastern, while continuing to emulate the form and style of western art. An authentic Malaysian art would hasten a desire to burst free of colonial captivating bonds to originate authentic indigenous art forms

man and his world suliaman esa 1972

entry points - redza piyadasa 1978

While many fine examples of a western dominated Malaysian art have graced walls of galleries and museums from Kuala Lumpur to Berlin it has not been until the 1990s that anything which may be described as a uniquely authentic Malaysian art has begun to appear.

The West’s artistic influence has been so powerful that Munch’s Scream may be heard echoing through Malaysia’s Titiwangsa range, metamorphosed by artists like Ahmad Fuad Osman and works like- Hoi Hoi...Apa Ni? Dia Kata Hang Salah, Hang Kata Dia Tak Betoi, Sapa yang Salah Sapa Yang Betoi Ni??!! Hangpa Ni Sebenaqnya Nak Apaaaa??? (1999)

The Scream (Skrik) Edvard Munch 1893

Hoi Hoi...Apa Ni? Dia Kata Hang Salah, Hang Kata Dia Tak Betoi, Sapa yang Salah Sapa Yang Betoi Ni??!! Hangpa Ni Sebenaqnya Nak Apaaaa??? - Ahmad Fuad Osman 1999


Finally, in the early years of a new millennium emerging Malaysian contemporary art practitioners are rediscovering their soul and learning the importance of their dreams. There is an emerging post-nascent movement growing away from western influenced and western defined art styles towards a culturally reflective art, concerned with re-discovery and re-assertion of identity – of indigenous myths and legends which themselves formulated the lands from which the artists come.

Mohamed Najib Ahmad Dawa, who originally worked with batik now uses a batik inspired style in his acrylic on canvas works, exploring the mythos and symbology of traditional Malay/Malaysian arts.

“Sang Nagahari (Hari Kelahiran Yang Dinanti-nantikan)”
Mohamed Najib Ahmad Dawa 2007

Nizam Ambia works in a number of mediums from steel sculpture to fashion design, but all his work draws upon the soul and spirit of his Malaysian homeland. In his paintings Nizam calls upon shadow puppet imagery as well as referencing Indian kolam designs in neo-figurative mixed-medium fantasies.

Nizam Ambia - THE PUTERI KAYANGAN SERIES 2006

The Malaysian ‘Seni Baru' (Art Nouveau) is yet to be recognised by the wielders of power and fortune – the Gallery system, for they concentrate on the ‘known’, that which is guaranteed to bring in the bucks. These galleries need to look to their laurels, for the new art is the art for which Malaysia will be known.

The new art will raise the artistic face of Malaysia to the daylight, so it will no longer be lost in paradise.