Resident Artist

Abdul Shakir (Grasshopper)

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Abdul Shakir (Grasshopper)

Our first digital art and projection mapping artist, Abdul Shakir spent a month at Rimbun Dahan from mid April to mid May 2022, experimenting with projections on organic surfaces, and producing visual elements inspired by the traditional carvings and other artefacts at Rimbun Dahan.

About the Artist

Abdul Shakir (also known as ‘Grasshopper’) is a multidisciplinary multimedia digital artist and one of the co-founders of Filamen, which focuses on projection mapping, light installation and interactive installation projects. Shakir has worked in post-production and production agencies, and has done various projects related to design and art: graphic design, motion graphics, projection mapping and interactive installation. His projects have gone beyond Malaysia and reached an international level, displaying his works in China, Hong Kong, Spain, and the USA. Some of the notable platforms in which he has shown his work are LAMPU Festival, Urbanscapes Art Festival, Rainforest in the City, and George Town Festival.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grassh_opper/

About the Residency

Throughout my one month residency at Rimbun Dahan, I managed to experiment on two bodies of work. The first, and also the main one, is the “Organic Projection Mapping”.  Most of my previous projection mapping works were done mainly on manmade objects such as buildings and vehicles. This residency enabled me to start experimenting with organic projections, where I could explore the mapping process on living organisms such as leaves and trees. The process is different from the normal projection mapping I usually do. Instead of having mappings done based on existing blueprints or templates, I get to experience impromptu mapping on-site.

In total,  I’ve managed to do 4 mapping sessions around the Rimbun Dahan compound. Thanks to the facilities provided, I was able to do this without technical difficulties although it was done during the night time.

My daytimes at Rimbun Dahan were filled with visual developments. I managed to produce more than 30 visual elements, rendered out every day. These visual elements were then composed into motifs, inspired by traditional carvings and objects around Rimbun Dahan. 

I also managed to share my practice with other residence artists here at Rimbun Dahan. It was such an interesting session as we opened up to each others’ thought processes and will, hopefully, lead up to collaborative projects in the near future. 

On my final night in Rimbun Dahan, I compiled all the visual motifs I had produced during my stay and arranged and composed them to be projected onto the facade of the heritage house Rumah Uda Manap. I decided to bring this house back to life by introducing vibrant elements that are inspired by the surroundings in Rimbun Dahan. The idea is to give back to Rimbun Dahan, of everything I have gained here. 

Shan Shan Lim

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Shan Shan Lim

Malaysian multidisciplinary artist and textile designer Shan Shan Lim joined us for a 3-month residency from March to May 2022.

About The Residency

Shan Shan approached her time with us as an opportunity to explore the boundaries of her artistic expression. Not content with limiting her work to a single medium, she experimented with cotton, wool, popsicle sticks, rice paper and linoleum. And the experimentation did not end there. Having foraged rocks from our forest at Rimbun Dahan and a local waterfall, she extracted earth pigments to concoct her own palette of natural paints. Taking the experiment further and drawing on her background as a weaver, she hand-dyed yarns using the Malaysian ikat technique and created a series of textile pieces. The resulting mixed media collection, a journey from the tangible to the abstract, is titled ‘The Shadow Self’.

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” — Carl Jung

We all carry a shadow. It represents a side of ourselves we choose to ignore. By focusing on the shadows cast by the world around her, Shan Shan unearthed her own shadow. For inspiration, she did not have to venture too far beyond her studio. Rimbun Dahan’s wealth of local flora offered up silhouettes of seeds, leaves, flowers, branches and herbs. The collection encourages us to find beauty in the overlooked shadow world that is tied to every blade of grass and every human being that walks the planet.

About The Artist

Shan Shan Lim (b.1993) is a multidisciplinary artist and designer based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Her works draw inspiration from a spectrum of cultures from her childhood in Malaysia, schooling in India and her bachelor’s in London. She specialised in weave and print at Central Saint Martins, earning a degree in Textile Design. She returned home to Malaysia where she founded her eponymous design studio in 2017.

Her work is a means to make sense of her environment, both physical and incorporeal. They reflect a search for harmony and spiritual freedom in a world of chaos. Each piece is a question simultaneously posed and answered, using intuition as her guide.

Her most notable exhibitions include Lokal Helsinki (2021), The Back Room (2020), Deck, Singapore (2020) and Bank Negara Malaysia (2018). She was also selected for the Art Girl Rising residency at Sepat House (2019).

Website: https://www.shanshanlimstudios.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shanshanlim_

Lee Mok Yee

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Lee Mok Yee

Malaysian visual artist Lee Mok Yee spent two months at Rimbun Dahan from March to April 2022 exploring different materials from Rimbun Dahan and its surroundings, creating structures connecting body and architecture.

About the Artist

Lee Mok Yee is a Malaysia visual artist and drummer born in Klang, a port town near the capital city, Kuala Lumpur, where he currently lives and works. A graduate of Dasein Academy of Art and the Fine Art program at Middlesex University of London, Mok Yee is an artist whose work is primarily concerned with the entanglement between the conceptual and the material. 

His work is process-focused and often interrogative of the aspect of ‘materials’ in art-making, choosing to work with ready-made or store-bought objects. Mok Yee re-arranges these materials as an act of interrogation against uniformity; pushing against the boundaries of function in mass-production, and in the re/arranging he questions the idea of moving within structures as an exploration of change and its futilities.

Website: https://www.leemokyee.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leemokyee
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leemokyee/

About the Residency

During his 2-month residency at Rimbun Dahan, Mok Yee explored different materials inspired by Rimbun Dahan and the Malay kampung surroundings. Using scrap wood and PVC carpet that he bought from stores nearby, he attempted to build structures which connected body and architecture. The outcome was a study of materials, pending further exploration in this series of works.

Mok Yee also resumed his study of techniques he had used previously, creating drawings using charcoal on paper, and etchings on kitchenware. For Mok Yee, this practice was a kind of collective process of memory and form inspired by Rimbun Dahan.

Cheong See Min

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Cheong See Min

Malaysian weaver and textile artist Cheong See Min is in residence at Rimbun Dahan from March to June 2022.

About the Artist

Cheong See Min is an artist, weaver and textile artist from Johor Bahru, Malaysia. She obtained a Master of Fine Art degree from the Graduate Institute of Applied Art in Tainan National University of Art, Taiwan, in 2020, and a Bachelor of Fine Art from Tunghai University, Taiwan, in 2017. In 2017, she received Nando’s Art Initiative Second Runner Up award and was also selected for Bakat Muda Sezaman Young Contemporaries 2019. In 2021, her work was also selected for the International Biennale Exhibition of Micro Textile Art “Scythia”, Ivano-Frankivs’k, Ukraine.

“I am an obsessive street observer and “collect” the way people unconsciously place their belongings in their neighbourhood. The rhetoric of object placement from the alleyways has inspired me and become the theme and motif in my artworks. Collecting materials from the street and recreating them within the concept of “textile”, my artworks are a collection of my memories and past experiences about the daily objects and people in places I have lived. In my works, I portray stories through textiles and the found objects, building self-understanding through the process.”

Website: https://seemincheong.wixsite.com/homepage
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cymin_cheong/

About the Residency

In this three-month project, I plan to collect dried leaves, tree bark and fruit found in the garden of Rimbun Dahan, to dye with yarns and to produce a series of small artworks with the weaving techniques I have learnt in this time. Being resident in Rimbun Dahan full time, I believe it will draw me into different perspectives and comparisons between Malaysia and Taiwan, and will nurture my work in the tropical garden.

Anjali Venugopal

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Anjali Venugopal in her studio at Rimbun Dahan.

Malaysian multidisciplinary artist Anjali Venugopal has joined us for a 3-month residency at Rimbun Dahan from June to August 2021.

About the Artist

Born (1995) and raised in Sabah, Anjali Nijjar Venugopal (Anju) graduated from Point College Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur with a Diploma in Film & TV Production.

Anju has always had a rebellious streak in their creative work. They do not like feeling caught or held down within their self expression. Most of their creative works are splayed-out messes, be it in their art performances, films or paintings. They’re always looking to break free from moulds that are constantly created by society to keep us in check. Their paintings are abstract and experimental pieces that are based on their impulses and self expression. They play with colours, different mediums and anything they can get their hands on. They love telling stories and finding different ways to merge their crafts.

Anju started exhibiting their artwork in 2015, back home in Sabah. Since then, they have exhibited their paintings around Malaysia. They exhibit their artwork yearly in Sabah Art Gallery under the “Sabah Women Art Exhibition”s. Anju has exhibited their work in Japan in ”Building Bridges” (2016 ) and “Celebrating Life” (2018) in Gallery Mona, Tokyo. Apart from painting, Anju has 9 years of experience writing, acting, directing and art directing in theatre. Among their theatre works are “Puck and the Mechanicals Do a Performance in 8 Minutes” (2020), “To Which My Brother Laughed;” (2019), “Indicinelive! 6” (2019), “Teater Modular: Kurator Dapur” (2018), and “FAMILY” (2017). They also actively work in front and behind the camera in film productions. Their recent experimental film project “To Perdure”, which explores the idea of maintaining oneself through hardship, was funded by CENDANA’S Create Now Funding Programme. Anju is a curator for Malam Sayu, a performance art initiative which received a grant from INXO Art Fund 2019, which has hosted multiple open mics, outdoor performances, writing circles and makes art films. Anju‘s poetry has also been published in the KL Spoken Word Anthology When I Say ‘Spoken’, You Say ‘Word’. Anju was highlighted in CLEO Magazine’s COOL KL 2020 as “individuals making a change creatively and the youth who are impacting society in every way”.

Tumblr: pertatos.tumblr.com
Instagram: instagram.com/pertatos

Artist’s Statement

Other than currently drawing and painting the bugs that have been swarming me here at Rimbun Dahan, I am interested to explore the idea “To Create, To Destroy, To Put Back Together Again”. This idea started out as frustration with the need to keep creating as a way to prove my worth and how I would like to destroy it all and find myself once again within the rubble. But since arriving here and journaling a lot, I have realised that a lot of life includes being destroyed and being rebuilt. One example is a caterpillar and how within a cocoon it completely liquifies itself before reforming again and becoming a moth. The same thing happens around us, in ourselves, our relationships, life and death, and in society. I am keen to explore a lot of questions I have been asking myself through different mediums of art. What are the ways to destroy? What exactly gets destroyed? How heavy is the emotional toll linked to destroying? What does destroying, creating and starting again mean? What is it like to continuously pick up the pieces? Is destroying always linked to rage and are there different types of rage? What is rebuilding and the difference between willingly rebuilding and forced rebuilding? I am using the time, space and energy that Rimbun Dahan offers to properly delve into my exploration and hopefully answer all these questions (or not).

Ong Hieng Fuong

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Ong Hieng Fuong

Malaysian visual artist Ong Hieng Fuong undertook a 6-month residency at Rimbun Dahan from May to October 2021, creating a series of limited edition woodcut prints and paintings in watercolour and poster paint which recorded immensely detailed observations of his surroundings.

Some of the works on this page may still be available for sale. To purchase works, please contact the artist directly: Ong Hieng Fuong, h5ho.1995@hotmail.com, Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hieng_9389/

Please click on the images below to view more details and larger versions.

Words from the Artist

My artworks are the documentation of my memories and past experiences about people, daily matters and objects in Malaysia. They are Ukiyo-E pieces about the society we live in.

In my artworks, you can see people and places that I met, visited and experienced. Following the flow of time and the development of our country, these memorable people and places are gradually disappearing. I try to capture these past and present aspects and visualize them in my artworks. In my works, I embrace different aspects including but not limited to human character, architecture, food, politics, religions, business, behaviour and environmental problems. You can also notice a huge number of little details in my work, the inspiration come from my memories and experiences. They also project the same mistakes that people never cease to make and society problems in our country that have existed for a long time.

In this 3-month project, I plan to utilize the techniques I learnt in China (Woodcut Print), two mediums (Poster Colors and Acrylic) to produce a batch of small/medium artworks that would present my core ideas.

After experiencing the landscapes of China, I want to make full use of my time here in Malaysia doing the same but in the tropical setting of our country’s rainforests. I believe through experiencing life in a different setting will draw me a vivid comparison of both worlds and introduce new perspectives to my work.

I believe art is a medium to present personal experience, not just pure imagination. Getting a chance to put myself through this experience will be very beneficial to my work. I look forward to creating new works at Rimbun Dahan.

About the Artist

Ong Hieng Fuong (a.k.a Hieng) is an artist from Tanjung Sepat, Selangor, Malaysia. Growing up in a small fishing town where the pace of life is much slower, he got to experience the daily aspects of common life to its fullest, which is a major source of his inspiration. In his artworks, you can see people that he met and places he visited and experienced. He feels that following the flow of time and the development of our country, memorable people and places in our memories fade away and disappear along with small aspects of our lives.

Capturing these aspects, he presents them in his works which are of astonishing detail. The aspects materialize as characters, architecture and objects in his works while describing the politics, religions and social behavior of people in our country. Through his work, he also implicitly portrays problems that have long existed in our society and country, which he hopes to invoke thoughts of reflection in ourselves.

In 2017, he received Nando’s Art Initiative Grand Prize and UOB’s Painting of the Year award (Emerging Artist Category). He was also named most promising artist of the year by UOB in the same year. In 2019, he received UOB’s Gold Prize for the established artist category. In 2020, the printmaking department of China’s Central Academy of Fine Arts officially collected his sketch works produced during his studies. He is currently pursuing his tertiary education at the China’s Central Academy of Fine Arts.

Website: hieng8122.weebly.com
Instagram: hieng_9389

Chong Yi Lin

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Chong Yi Lin working on embroidery at Rimbun Dahan.

Malaysian visual artist Chong Yi Lin is undertaking a 3-month residency at Rimbun Dahan in mid-2021.

Words from the Artist

Born in Malaysia in 1992, I graduated from Dasein Academy of Arts with diploma in Fine Arts in 2013. I obtained my Bachelor of Fine Arts from Taipei National University of Arts, Taiwan, in 2019.

Through my work, I discuss life, love and loss in all its simplicity. My art is a form of restoration of my feelings towards objects. People will leave but objects won’t. I employ conventional methods and textile mediums to explore the politics of sentiment through a fusion of nostalgia, symbolism, and little rituals in our everyday lives. Threads and lines are vulnerable and soft. It is an important part of our lives. I believe that the thread can hold things together, through needlework; it goes back and forth to embed the emotions into the objects.

Nature, it arises, changes and disappears. Despite the fact that impermanence is inevitable but our emotions can’t be explained, it is lifetime, but evanescent. Currently, I’m working on a plant drawing project by blending my observation and imagination of the plants in Rimbun Dahan. Besides that, I have the idea of creating “something” using found natural objects that I collect while having a walk. I’m looking for an epiphany.

Website: chongyilin.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chongyilin_/

Seeds collected by Chong Yi Lin from the garden at Rimbun Dahan.

Reimena Yee

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Reimena Yee

Malaysian illustrator and storyteller Reimena Yee has joined us for a 1-month residency from February to March 2021. She is currently working on two graphic novels. The first, My Aunt is a Monster, is a children’s adventure comedy about an aspiring writer and her former world’s greatest adventure aunt with a secret. (Announcement on Publisher’s Weekly) The second is a 21st century retelling of the Alexander Romance, a 2000-year old global literary tradition of the life, legend and legacy of Alexander the Great. (https://reimenayee.com/alexander-the-great)

My Aunt is a Monster is about blind orphan Safia, who dreams of being an adventurer. When it’s discovered that Safia has a living relative, the reclusive Lady Walteranne Whimsy, Safia is whisked away to a new home and a new adventure she never knew was possible.

Alexander, The Servant & The Water of Life In 323 BCE, Alexander the Great, fearing the destruction of his pothos – his longing for life, ambition and eternal conquest – from old age, Alexander embarks on a quest for the elusive Water of Life while accompanied by his wisest, most trustworthy Servant.

As they experience a series of countless fabulous wonders, including glass submarines, naked philosophers, Amazonians, and talking prophetic trees, Alexander confronts his complex legacy and reflects on the life and deeds that will cement his transformation into one of the most unforgettable figures in world history.

About Reimena

Reimena Yee is the author-illustrator of the gothic comics The World in Deeper Inspection, the Eisner and Mcduffie-nominated The Carpet Merchant of Konstantiniyya, and Seance Tea Party. She also writes The Makers Club series, co-created with Tintin Pantoja. As an illustrator and designer, she creates whimsical and poppy artwork for clients like Dropmix, Girls Make Games, Adventure Time, DFTBA’s Bizarre Beasts, and Penguin Workshop among many others. Elsewhere, she is the co-founder and co-organiser of UNNAMED, a regional grassroots comics collective for visual-literary creators in Southeast Asia focusing on community-building and resource-sharing through workshops, panels and partnerships. And when she’s not coming up with ideas for UNNAMED, she works part-time as an editor and admin assistant in Hiveworks Comics, an online webcomics and graphic novel studio-publisher.

reimenayee.com

Shia Yih Yiing

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Shia Yih Yiing

Malaysian visual artist Shia Yih Yiing is undertaking a short self-funded residency at Rimbun Dahan in December 2020.

About the Artist

Throughout her thirty-year career as an artist, Shia Yih Yiing has been portraying the world around her through vivid visual stories, imaginative characters (portraits of family members and friends) juxtaposed with the subjects that inspire her. Her work delves into themes of femininity, motherhood, and is often imbued with a sense of playfulness and metaphor.

Hailing from Kuching, Sarawak, Shia Yih Yiing studied at the Malaysian Institute of Art and holds a Masters in Fine Art from the University of Western Sydney.

About the Residency

During her residency, Yih Yiing is working on a visual study of native trees and the making of forest through fieldwork with Rimbun Dahan’s chief and assistant gardeners. She then hopes to undertake a creative research field trip into Penan villages in Sarawak’s vanishing rainforests in Ulu Baram.

This is part of an ecologically-concerned community art project for “Planting Dreams, in Search of a Good Gardener” project, supported by CENDANA’s Visual Arts Inspire program.

Syed Fakaruddin

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Syed Fakaruddin

Visual artist Syed Fakaruddin is undertaking a 6-month residency at Rimbun Dahan from September to March 2020, in preparation for a solo exhibition. During his residency, he is developing a series of works exploring the three layers of landscape painting: background, middleground and foreground. Each layer has a different expression and technique, depending on mood, memory and the residency environment.

About the Artist

Syed Fakaruddin (b. 1989, Malaysia) is a Malaysia-based artist who works mainly in painting, sculpture and installation. He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from University Teknologi Mara (UiTM) in 2012 majoring in sculpture. Syed Fakaruddin is inclined toward equipping himself as a multi-disciplinary artist by actively challenging himself in various techniques, less-conventional media and thought-provoking ideas which are strongly drawn from his surroundings.

Being receptive to nature, Syed Fakaruddin uses metaphors in his art in an attempt to evoke emotions, offer different perspectives and often challenging his audience’s comprehension in a self-reflective manner. He sees himself as a creative story-teller who soaks up interesting stories based on his own experience, being both the muse and the observer.

Syed Fakaruddin was named as one of the grand winners of the Malaysia Emerging Artist Award 2019 (MEAA) and selected as the finalist for the ‘Bakat Muda Sezaman’ contest organized by the National Visual Arts Gallery. Currently, he is practicing art in Ara Damansara.