Southeast Asian Arts Residency

Melissa Lin

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Melissa Lin

melissaMalaysian artist and astrologer Melissa Lin was in residence at Rimbun Dahan in 2014, where her work ventured into new degrees of scale.

Bio

Melissa Lin is an artist and astrologer who loves how both disciplines deepen, teach about and reveal the mystery and richness of life and living. Art for her is a process of becoming and of encouraging the intrepid traveler on the way to wholeness and experience, not only for the individual self, but also for the health of the community and collective. Art can be the voice that returns us to our best selves and to the world.

Artist’s Statement

The gift of time and of spaciousness by the Rimbun Dahan residency has opened up new possibilities of exploration for my drawing and painting practice.

The process of exploration for me has been one of allowing and observing visual narratives, characters, expressive impulses that want to emerge from a sea of stories of the world, drawn from experience, the psyche, history, culture, magic, myth and wisdom.

This organic emergence to me is a way to return to feeling, sensing, drawing out pleasure from slowness, from savouring, and creates wholeness while living in a world where it is easy to lose and to drown oneself too much information and stimuli that leads to being dislocated from the self.

My drawings and paintings also reflect my interest in natural yet otherworldly environments that are like an interface or in between dimension where the personal internal world and the external world, the realm of imagination and of reality can come together and are a meditation on my physical travels, as well as traveling through ones own internal landscape and life.

Anniketyni Madian

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Anniketyni Madian

Artist’s statement:

annikAnniketyni Madian is a Sarawakian artist who is currently creating a stir in the local art scene with her sculptural works. Fresh, energetic and visually arresting, her current works are an embodiment of her love for her native culture. Deriving her inspiration from the exotic Pua Kumbu textiles, her works are given a personal, contemporary touch which makes every sculpture a unique piece. She translates her works from two-dimensional drawing of Pua Kumbu patterns to a painstaking three dimensional sculptures , creating an interesting perspective and depth to her works. One cannot fail to notice the intricacies of her complex work where each slice of wood is minutely detailed and perfectly aligned in order create a smooth, seamless flow.

Having progressively paved her way in a scene which is largely dominated by male artists, Anniketyni’s sculptural journey is currently ongoing at Rimbun Dahan. Come interact and watch the artist delve into the intricacies of her complex work that narrates the beauty of her heritage in her very own language. The open studio residency will take place on 6 September 2014 and is open to public from all walks of life.

Text by Mona Kv.

 

Carlo Gernale

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Carlo Gernale

Visual Arts Resident, 2013

Artist’s statement:

carlo_gernaleCarlo “Caloy” Gernale (b. 1979) is a Filipino visual artist based in Southern Tagalog, Philippines. As a contemporary social-realist artist, he attempts to articulate not only his personal views, but more importantly, the collective stand and the national democratic aspiration of the marginalized.

As an artist, Gernale is driven by the past and present events that mould Philippine history; he also has a penchant for indigenous and contemporary myths, fables, and banter, and tries to incorporate them into his works of art. Guided by his socio-political leaning, he attempts to come up with a cohesive body of works that are visually and semiotically potent.

Gernale studied Bachelor of Fine Arts in Philippine Women’s University. In 2006, he mounted his first solo exhibit “Ispup.” His most recent exhibit titled “Allegories and Allergies” was held in May 2013 at West Gallery, Philippines.

Le Thua Tien

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Le Thua Tien

Le Thua Tien has a diverse art practice that includes paintings, installation, experimentation with sculpture and community based art projects. The direction of Tien’s paintings changed from figurative to abstract when he arrived at the Rijks Academy in Amsterdam in 1995. Some of his most recent works are mixed media and lacquer and can be considered symbolic of his subjects. He is one of Vietnam’s few artists who address the American War in his works. His work also tends to be more conceptual than many other Vietnamese artists. His work has been displayed in the United States, Thailand, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Venezuela, Japan, and Australia. Le Thua Tien lectured at the Fine Arts University in Hue, Vietnam, from 1989 to 2008. He now lives and works in Hue.

About the Residency

The Haiku Path Project in Rimbun Dahan is a sculpture / installation project. It contains a series of selected haiku poems, engraved onto granite slabs, arranged along the walking paths of Rimbun Dahan’s garden. The granite used in this project is recycled material. By laying it back to the ground; with time, the slabs will embed themselves into the forest.

The project aims to:

  • Introduce haiku to the Malaysian public.
  • Create a walking path through Rimbun Dahan’s compound, where visitors can approach the sculpture/poem works in different locations.

The first stage of the project, created in February 2013, features 5 haiku poems written by Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) [with English translation by R. H. Blyth] and two poems by Mike Ladd (b.1959), a former Rimbun Dahan artist in residence. Tien considers The Haiku Path Project an ongoing project and plans to add more poems to the compound.

Haiku (Hi-koo) is a traditional Japanese verse form, notable for its compression and suggestiveness. In the three lines totalling seventeen syllables measuring 5-7-5, a great haiku presents, through imaginary drawn from intensely careful observation, a web of associated ideas (renso) requiring an active mind on the part of the listener. The form emerged during the 16th century and was developed by the poet Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) into the refined medium of Buddhist and Taoist symbolism.

Ashly Nandong

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Ashly Nandong

ashly-performing-close-up

Ashly Nandong is a thirty-year old artist from Kuching, Sarawak who joins us for three months as short-stay artist-in-residence at Rimbun Dahan.

Ahsly completed a Bachelor’s degree in Mechatronics and Robotics Engineering at Swinburne University, in Victoria, Australia in 2009, returning to Malaysia in early 2011. However, it was his informal art education and exposure to traditional dance and music during his formative adolescent years that marked him for quite a different life direction. Eventually, and inevitably it seemed, what placed him firmly on this different road was his continued active involvement in the performance and visual arts, while living in Melbourne. Having been taught the sapeh lute as a teenager under different gurus, the traditional Dayak dance of the Orang Ulu and Iban people, and now as painter, Ashly crosses from performance to visual arts and back with ease.

A strong sense of his Iban cultural heritage is what binds; one medium of expression inspires the other in a non-hierarchy. Traditional motifs and metaphors make for meaningful markers and anchor him along the way in his berjalai, an ancient Iban custom of roaming or journeying in search of greener pastures of knowledge and hopefully the ‘wisdom’ that comes from hands-on experience.

At Rimbun Dahan, Ashly is given a much-needed time for contemplation in an important  part of his berjalai; an introspective time to connect with his creative aspirations in response to his current ‘spiritual’ situation. Ashly is presently working on a painting depicting the Tree of Life, a motif found in Iban symbolism and in religions, mythologies and philosophies throughout many different cultures, in varying permutations.

A unifying principle that unites all cultures and religions is something Ashly gravitates towards, being very keen to understand deeper the creative force that at core animates all living entities with spirit. The living tree, rooted in earth but with branches reaching upwards for the heavens is aptly symbolic of Ashly’s current station of berjalai at Rimbun Dahan, a place of lofty trees and sounds of ancient cicadas and birdsong.

T.H.E. Dance Company

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T.H.E. Dance Company from Singapore enjoyed a short residency at Rimbun Dahan in January 2012, rehearsing new works for premieres. During their residency, artistic director Kuik Swee Boon and T.H.E. Dancers conducted a workshop in the Dance Department at ASWARA, and generously included Malaysian dancers in their daily company class. Malaysian tai chee master Tangkok Lee was invited to teach occasional company class during the company’s residency.

Zedeck Siew

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Zedeck Siew

zedeck

In 2011, Malaysian writer Zedeck Siew spent three months in residence at Rimbun Dahan.

Bio

Zedeck Siew has been a journalist, editor and critic for art journal Kakiseni, news website The Nut Graph, lifestyle magazine Klue, and community-level information portal Poskod Malaysia. He has written about bad lobby art at the UMNO General Assembly, seen some truly horrendous theatre, and covered a by-election in rural Kelantan. He has also dabbled in performance – most notably in Five Arts Centre’s 2009 experimental shadow-puppet play Wayang Fajar. In 2011, he left gainful employment in media to work on fiction.

Liew Kwai Fei

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Liew Kwai Fei

kwaifei_in_studioLiew Kwai Fei, “one of the most exciting new generation of abstract painters in Malaysia”, undertook a 3-month residency at Rimbun Dahan from July to September 2010.

Kwai Fei majored in Ink Painting at the Malaysia Art Institute. Since graduation, he has participated in a number of group exhibitions such as ‘3 Instalasi + 3@RAP’ A Preview of Installation Art and Drawings at Rumah Air Panas, Kuala Lumpur (2003), YOUQING – A Showcase of Ink Painting and Drawing at Rumah Air Panas, Kuala Lumpur (2004), and Al-kesah/Once Upon A Time in Malaysia at Map Art Space (2010). In 2003, Kwai Fei held his first solo exhibition titled ‘Fei’ at Rumah Air Panas, Kuala Lumpur which travelled to Le Bois Creation, Melaka. He also participated in the VASL International Artist Residency in Karachi, Pakistan in 2003.

 

Zaw Win Pe

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Zaw Win Pe

dinner

Burmese artist Zaw Win Pe undertook a short residency at Rimbun Dahan from April to June 2010.

“I am inspired by landscape themes, not with the thought of painting particular places, but of expressing elemental moods and emotions. But the paintings never lack the geographical and environmental characteristics of the places I paint. Colour is the key element for me. I believe colour can tell everything about human’s feelings and thoughts.”

Born in 1960 in Le Gaing, Mague Division, Central Myanmar
1981 – 1984 State School of Fine Art

Myanmar exhibitions:

zaw_studio1994 Wintry Winter Group Exhibition, Judson Hall, Yangon
1996 Five Fingers Art Exhibition, New Treasure Gallery, Yangon
1998 Page 98 Group Exhibition, Lokanat Gallery, Yangon
1998 Libra Art Exhibition, Lokanat Gallery, Yangon
1998 All Myanmar Art and Sculpture Exhibition, Yangon
1999 Aesthetic Journey Art Exhibition, Yangon
2000 Nudes by Contemporary Myanmar Artists, Yangon
2000 Artistic Touch Exhibition, Lokanat Gallery, Yangon
2000 “Zaw Win Pe’s Palette Knife Paintings”, Yangon
2001 Stroke in Tempo Exhibition, Yangon
2002 5th Annual Group Show, Myanmar Gallery of Contemporary Art, Yangon
2002 “Exotic Eye” – Solo, Myanmar Gallery of Contemporary Art, Yangon
2003 Page 2003 Exhibition, Lokanat Gallery, Yangon
2004 4th Artistic Touch Group Exhibition, Lokanat Gallery, Yangon
2004 Myanmar Contemporary Art Awards Exhibition of Finalists, Yangon
2008 Myanmar Contemporary Art Awards Exhibition of Finalists, Yangon

Overseas exhibitions:

2004 Myanmar Contemporary Art Award Exhibition of finalists, HK
2004 Two man exhibition with Ba Khine, Singapore
2005 “Searching the Colour with Knife Strokes”, Solo exhibition, Chiang Mai, Thailand
2005 Three man exhibition “Burma Stars”, Hong Kong
2006 “Quiet Wind” Exhibition of five Myanmar artists, San Francisco
2007 “Burma Phoenix” Group show of Myanmar artists, New York
2007 Contemporary Art from Myanmar. Group show of Myanmar artists, Washington, USA
2007 Art from Myanmar. Group show of Myanmar artists, Princeton and New York
2008 “Serenity” Solo Exhibition, Ernst & Young Solution LLp, Singapore
2010 “Christies-30 Artfriends Exhibition, Christies International Art Auction House

Awards and collections

2004 Winner of the Myanmar Contemporary Art Awards
2008 Second prize winner in the Myanmar Contemporary Art Awards 2008
2008 Painting acquired by the Singapore National Art Museum

Other Art Experience

2010 Painting was selected as 30 Artfriends Book.

Arco Renz & Amrita Performing Arts

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Arco Renz & Amrita Performing Arts

Photo by Anders Jiras.

In 2010, Brussels-based choreographer Arco Renz and dancers from Amrita Performing Arts, Cambodia, spent an intensive residency at Rimbun Dahan developing the new work Crack, commissioned by the Singapore Arts Festival 2011.

The development concluded with a work-in-progress showing, “Cracking in Progress” at The Actors Studio Theatre @ Lot 10 Rooftop, on 27 March 2010. During the showing, Arco will presented and explaiedn the movement material created so far and the dance tasks he has set for the Cambodian dancers. Arco and the Amrita dancers also discussed and took questions on their work.

Crack is a performance about the developing individuality of a new generation of Cambodians after their civil war – their conflicts, hopes, dreams, and desires. Physically exploring the themes of emergence from isolation towards integration in the complexities of the contemporary world, this performance promises to ascribe and describe through contemporary dance, music and performance the zeitgeist of a new country.

About Arco Renz

A protegee of famed Belgian minimalist dance artist Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Arco Renz’s productions reveal an intense physicality and explore the emotional force of abstraction. In his creations he consistently broadens the principles of Abstract Dramaturgy to light, sound and multimedia interfaces. Kobalt Works is the production organization founded by Arco Renz. Since the establishment of Kobalt Works in 2000, Arco Renz has developed a successful artistic track, creating and touring several performances as well as developing transcultural and multidisciplinary research and exchange programs. He presented ‘heroine’, a solo work by Taiwanese dancer Wen-Chi Su, at the Singapore Arts Festival 2010.

About Amrita Performing Arts

Amrita Performing Arts is an international NGO based in Phnom Penh whose mission is to preserve the spectrum of Cambodia’s traditional performing arts, while nurturing contemporary artistic expression. In 2011 they presented ‘Khmeropedies I & II’ at the Esplanade, Singapore, created by former Baryshnikov dancer Emmanuèle Phuon.