Jennifer Tyers has been a resident artist at Rimbun Dahan for three months. She works with watercolour and paints landscapes. Sometimes she works in printmaking and book making. She has been based in Asia for several years, working on landscapes at the Singapore Botanic Gardens and was also an artist in resident at AIRY in Kofu, Japan, in 2014. She has an exhibition at Cast Gallery in Hobart, Tasmania in May.
At Rimbun Dahan Jennifer is painting the grounds with particular interest in the various plants and trees on Rimbun Dahan.
Joanna Gambotto, of Sydney, Australia, was in residence at Hotel Penaga in George Town, Penang, from November 2014 to January 2015, and was inspired by all the colours and textures of Georgetown. She gave an informal showing of Oriented, her new body of work, on 30 January 2015 at Hotel Penaga.
Carlo “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.
Barbara Wildenboer was born in Pretoria, South Africa in 1973. She completed a BA (Ed) with majors in English literature, Psychology and Pedagogics at the University of Pretoria in 1996. In 2003 she obtained a Bachelor of Visual Arts from UNISA followed by a Masters in Fine Art (with distinction) from the Michaelis School of Art at the University of Cape Town in 2007.
Wildenboer has been awarded several international residencies such as the Unesco-Aschberg residency (Jordan, 2006), the Al Mahatta residency (Palestine, 2009) and the Red De Residencias Artisticas Local (Colombia, 2011) and the Hotel Penaga artist residency (Penang, Malaysia, 2013). In 2011 she was nominated and subsequently selected as one of the top 20 finalists for the Sovereign African Arts Award for which she received the Public Choice Prize.
Sangeeta Sandrasegar works within a research-based practice, building narratives in which every new work connects to previous projects. Her practice consolidates postcolonial and hybridity theory, exploring her context within Australia and its relationship to migrant communities and homelands. Her work concerns itself within the overlap of cultural structures – sexuality, race and identity, in contemporary society – and interpreting and representing these shifts. These themes are explored through a visual language concerned with shadows. From installations of paper cutouts, material works and/or sculpture, the constructed shadows of the installation become a motif for themes of self-hood, otherness and in-between spaces. By extending the scope of the art object the cast shadows simultaneously engage with the history of the shadow in Art, and hint towards cognitive alternatives and sites of transformation.
In 2004 Sandrasegar completed a Doctorate of Philosophy across the Victorian College of the Arts and the Australian Centre at the University of Melbourne. The content of the exegesis was to formalize a visual practice centred on the creative space of shadows into a theoretical tool. She proposed that the shadow subject could be re-examined and liberated from its historical representations and to be employed as both a positive and salient visual device for representing the ideas being examined in post-colonial and hybridity studies.
Sandrasegar has been represented in group and solo exhibitions since 1996, and is the recipient of several fellowships and prizes. In particular, national showcases for emerging artists: Primavera, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, NEW04, Australian Centre of Contemporary Art, Melbourne. As well as the Auckland Triennial and SCAPE: New Zealand Community Art & Industry Biennial in New Zealand and the Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art 05, Gallery of Modern Art Queensland. Last year her work was shown in the Incheon Women Artists Biennale in Korea, and Slash: Paper Under the Knife, Museum of Arts and Design, New York.
Sangeeta was in residency at Hotel Penaga from October to December 2012.
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.
Anima mundi, a work inspired by Rimbun Dahan, currently on display at MAP Publika, Solaris Dutamas.
Tree of Life.
Ashley in his studio at Rimbun Dahan with Tree of Life.
Malaysian Artist for the Malaysia-Australia Visual Artists’ Residency 2012
Azam Tajol Aris in his studio at Rimbun Dahan with some of his army of clones.
Azam Tajol Aris is Rimbun Dahan’s Malaysian year-long artist-in-residence. He graduated in Fine Arts from Universiti Institut Teknologi Malaysia, in 2007. Born in Perak in 1985, and growing up into the digital age of internet technology, it is the popular-culture world of graphic novels, anime and internet ‘ready-made’ third-hand or regurgitated information that informs Azam Tajol Aris’ art practice. In the current state of information saturation, a threat that ‘all is rumour’ requiring a challenging critical response is what seems to push Azam towards the satirical in his work in a light-hearted social commentary.
Azam’s current work at Rimbun Dahan is in three-dimensional form. It is the first step in a slight shift in direction. He has made multiple plaster casts of a male figure resembling a soldier to create an army of ‘clones’. There is also a cast plaster figure of one clone-member who must be the general, his mouth in an ugly gape, shouting out an order for conformity. Instead of a helmet though, the clones all have their hair gathered into a peak at the top, a cross between a headgear found on ancient Ramayanawayang kulit characters and a popular latter day hair style.
As ‘puppet master’ or dalang, Azam himself acts as a conduit for the rapid re-processing and disseminating of information. Gathering a patchwork of data, he re-creates ‘still-life’ mute scenarios or vignettes in three-dimensions. The germ for Azam’s three-dimensional ‘stories’ is information that had already been pre-processed and then re-processed and re-translated. Azam completes the mythologizing process by re-packaging the pieces of information into a critique.
Azam Tajol Aris in his studio at Rimbun Dahan with some of his army of clones.
Azam Tajol Aris in his studio at Rimbun Dahan with some of his army of clones.
Azam Tajol Aris in his studio at Rimbun Dahan with some of his army of clones.
CV
Born 15 December 1983, Taiping Perak.
Address Studio Sebiji Padi, 19A Jalan Unyang, Taman Alam Megah, Seksyen 27, 40000 Shah Alam.
Contact 0125785405, Azam_aris@yahoo.com.
Education
2005 – 2007
BFA (hons.), UiTM Shah Alam.
2004 – 2005
Skim Latihan Graduan, PESDC, Tronoh Perak – MMU
Cyberjaya, 7 Month Training in Video.
2001 – 2004
Diploma in Fine Art, UiTM Sri Iskandar.
Solo Exhibitions
2010
‘PARANOIA’ R.A Gallery, Ampang, Kuala Lumpur.
2008
‘FLOAT’ House Of Matahati, Taman Cempaka, KL
Selected Group Exhibitions
2011
Vertical-Horizontal, House of Matahati, Kuala Lumpur.
2010
The Young Contemporaries Competition, National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur.
Art Triangle, National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur.
BAD@MAP, Solaris, Kuala Lumpur.
2009
Malaysian Contemporary, Conpenhangen, Denmark.
MEA Award, Sokka Gakai Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur.
B.A.C.A , R.A Gallery
2008
Young n New part 1, HOM KL.
2007
Degree Show, TNZ Galeri, UiTM Shah Alam
Awards
2010
Juror Award, Young Contemporaries 2010, National Art Gallery, KL.
Malaysian Artist for the Malaysia-Australia Visual Arts Residency 2011
Artist’s statement:
Haslin Ismail in his studio at Rimbun Dahan, with his work for the 2011 Art for Nature exhibition.
“I call the new body of artworks done at Rimbun Dahan ‘Ghost in the Shell’. Taking the same title from the work of Masamune Shirow’s manga and anime adaptation from director Mamoru Oshii, it is an experiment of two main components: the flesh and the machine. The clash between these two elements is highlighted by the creation of robots, machines and human anatomy. They relate to each other and give rise to an expression of function and technology. Visually, both the science fiction and fantasy world that dominate the atmosphere of my artworks present a wide range of routes and exciting explorations. I am a fan of the works of science fiction and fantasy visions such as Jules Verne, HG Wells and the great silent movie “Metropolis” by Fritz Lang. The amazing world of Osamu Tezuka, the super-galactic Star Wars trilogy, the genius of Hayao Miyazaki and Katsuhiro Otomo and so many more great masterpieces from the great masters of sci-fi and fantasy are my stimulation. When drawing, painting or creating works, I feel as if I am in their world, fighting with monsters on/from planet Mars or at war with damaged robot(s).”
“Supermarionation”, 2011, Oil pastel and acrylic on canvas, 214 x 152 cm.
“Ghost in the Shell”, 2011, Acrylic on canvas, 122 x 76 cm.
“Homage to Miyazaki”, 2011, Acrylic on canvas, 183 x 153 cm.
“Mind Game”, 2011, Watercolour on paper, 29 x 29 cm.
“The Day the Earth Stood Still”, 2011, Acrylic on jute, 213.5 x 213.5 cm.
“Things to Come”, 2011, Acrylic on canvas, 183 x 152.5 cm.
Artist’s Biography
Haslin Ismail (b. 1984) from Johor graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) from Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) in 2007. He has been creating and exhibiting his fantastical art pieces in various exhibitions since 2000. He was winner of the grand prize for In-Print: Contemporary British Art from the Paragon Press held at National Art Gallery in 2006. His first solo exhibition ‘Exorcismus Persona: Windows Into Fantasy Worlds of Haslin Ismail’ was at the RA Fine Arts Gallery in 2009. He was also the grand prize winner for the prestigious Young Contemporary Award (2010) at National Art Gallery with his entry of a complex and intricate paper/book art installation.He has also participated in group shows at National Art Gallery, Petronas Gallery, Taksu, Zinc, Valentine Willie Fine Art, Wei-Ling Gallery and the Annexe at Central Market.
Australian visual artist Anthony Pelchen spent three months at Rimbun Dahan on an Asialink residency in 2010. During his stay he contributed works to the 2010 Art for Nature exhibition, and helped to produce the Melaka Art & Performance Festival 2010. In 2013 he presented the exhibition Kuang Road Prayer at the Horsham Regional Arts Gallery in Horsham, Australia, with works inspired and begun during his time at Rimbun Dahan.
Anthony Pelchen in his studio at Rimbun Dahan, photographing Shima, who lives and works at Rimbun Dahan.
Kuang Road Prayer
Kuang Road Prayer – work in progress, Malaysia, July 2010 C type print, 29.9 x 42cm.
In 2010 on an Asialink artist residency at Rimbun Dahan, Malaysia, Pelchen witnessed life in the balance and produced the foundation of a body of work titled Kuang Road Prayer.
Through reflection and continued artistic engagement with Malaysia, Pelchen has expanded this evocative body of work. Issues of change, vulnerability and resilience, at the core of Kuang Road Prayer, are explored in this exhibition through drawing, photography, video and sculpture.
The exhibition entitled Kuang Road Prayer was opened by Angela Hijjas at the Horsham Regional Arts Gallery on 18 August 2013 — read the opening speech here. For more about Kuang Road Prayer, see Anthony Pelchen’s website.
Biography
Born 1960 in Horsham in North West Victoria, Anthony Pelchen studied Economics at Monash University and a decade later painting at the Victorian College of the Arts.
Common to all his work is an overriding interest in the fine lines and shifts between physical and psychological states and how a dominance of one inevitably points to the absence and potential of another. This has involved work across media – painting, drawing, photography, video, sculpture and installation – all incorporating elements of repetition, austerity and subtle change within set structures.
Throughout the 1990s he lived in Melbourne and exhibited widely in artist-run, institutional and alternative spaces. He has exhibited twice in Osaka and has been represented in various surveys of painting and drawing over the past twelve years. He has had numerous residencies in Australia and Japan and has been the recipient of Arts Victoria grants for new work, presentation and international cultural exchange.
Since 1998 he has periodically collaborated with Melbourne-based performers Yumi Umiumare and Tony Yap in gallery, church, landscape and performance environments in Australia, Japan and Denmark. Between 1999 and 2007, he jointly conducted Butoh/drawing workshops at his base on the Wimmera River, west of Horsham. In 2007 he continued a biennial use of the local Natimuk Lutheran Church as an installation space, collaborating with 222 local and Japanese children.
In 2008/9 he participated in Drought – Cross Cultural Collaborations. Curated by Lella Cariddi, it resulted in new solo and collaborative work being presented in 2008 in Melbourne at the National Gallery of Victoria, Australian Centre for the Moving Image and Federation Square. In 2009, installation work was commissioned for the Murray Darling Palimpsest #7, Mildura, and the Gold Mining Exchange Building in Ballarat.
His work is represented in collections including the National Gallery of Victoria, John McBride Collection, Australian Print Workshop and Artbank.
Since 2000, he has lived back on land on the Wimmera River in NW Victoria.
Gecko on My Shoulder
The 16th Rimbun Dahan Residency Exhibition
6th to 20th March 2011 in the Underground Gallery at Rimbun Dahan
‘Penang Cloud’, 2010, fabric ink & silk embroidery thread on cotton, 56 x 142 cm.
Acknowledgements: Hijjas Kasturi and Angela Hijjas, my partner Alex, my daughter
Jacqui, my parents Sue and Geoff, Marianne Erikson, and the Swedish Arts Grants Committee.
Textile Art with glowing colours, growing in Jessica B Watson’s concepts
“…Into the future I would like to continue working with costume, sculptural textiles and art as a profession. I’d like to continue developing and exploring – methods and paths may change along the way but I’m sure that something shall glow and grow…”
These were the words Jessica wrote ten years ago, concluding the report of her Masters’ Degree in 2000. Her project then was called “Flickers” — a colourful swarm of mushroom-like figures, entering trams and spreading out in Gothenburg City, Sweden, as homage to spring, blowing into the gloomy infrastructure after a long winter. — What is this? Confused people asked. This playful group in Jessica’s designed outfits also took part in the Gothenburg Dance and Theatre Festival, which led to further engagements in the international field.
Nature seems to influence Jessica wherever she goes in this world: The structure of the squiggly bark of the eucalyptus trees in her native Australia, the bright red mushrooms with white dots in Swedish forests, the vivid yellow lichens of the grey rocks at the Scandinavian coast and here the tropic vegetation of Malaysia. What inspiration do they bring out in an artists’ mind?
Her motifs are, however, not only aesthetic or decorative, they also reveal a concept. That is what makes them soimaginative. They deal with different phases of human relationships. Some phenomena in nature take a long time to grow; sensitive textile art is indeed time-consuming and sincere relationships between people need time to build up. All to be handled with care!
Characteristic for Jessica are bright colours which vibrate through layers of different materials and are accentuated through light and a number of techniques. Embroidered simple lines or sketchy, but dramatic stitches show an expressive movement in her pictures such as the ambulating salesmen with their dangling goods on the beaches of Rio or heavily falling rain where she is now. Motifs are emphasized, being worked in series and different scales. Her three-dimensional forms show connection to wearable art and costume design.
For an observant and aware artist like Jessica the environment of Rimbun Dahan ought to be stimulating. Her residence is in an old traditional Malay house, surrounded by a large garden. The multicultural society, where Muslim arabesques and lattice screens meet ancient Chinese symbols and Indian kolam applications are incorporated in Malaysian daily life. Here the skilled handicraft is the base of a fascinating blend. The blue sky holds changing dragon-clouds, bringing cosmic energy to people on the earth. Look up and you will see!
Jessica’s titles are often subtexts. “Good things happen in threes” is among her recent works. The three fertilefig trees, supported by the screen, are individuals, each carrying an ethnic issue. Delicate embroidered lines, like nerves in a leaf, shape shou — the sign of long life, still beloved by the Chinese. The polychrome segmented leaves are influenced by the colourful Indian kolam floor decorations. The third plant with translucent, fluorescent flowers is like an attractive part of Malaysian songket (weaving with gold or silver thread). It is a piece of beauty, but it also points at some global complications. People from different regions and religions live together and have to face the problems of coping with each other. Hopefully they will grow together, glow side by side, like the art of Jessica. Intentionally she uses a combination of frottage, songket, screen-printing, hand painting and embroidery to achieve a richness more expressive than in a painting. Being open-minded the spiritual fire will be maintained, developed by concentrated work to multifarious flowering.
Marianne Erikson
Textile historian, Head of the Textile collections at the Röhsska
Museum of Arts & Crafts and Design, Gothenburg Sweden
between 1974-1999.
Jessica Watson embroidering ‘Rain Falling on Butterflies’, a work for Art for Nature 2010 ‘SURVIVAL’. Photo by Noor Mahnun Mohamed.
About Jessica Watson
Jessica Watsons’ work is a fusion of 2-dimensional textile art and wearable art. Her interest in the human body, both covering and depicting it, has taken her into the fields of art, costume design and fashion.
Surface, identity and contact are reoccuring themes in her artwork and as a textile artist she subconsciously investigates the boundaries imposed upon textile art from the fine art world. Working predominantly in series, Watson develops and enhances her ideas through repetition and scale.
In 2003 Watson spent three months in the Australian Snowy Mountains where she developed embroidered screenprints based on the squiggly bark eucalyptus for the joint exhibition wouldwork. In 2006 and 2007 she travelled to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, dividing her time between ritzy Ipanema and the Rio slums developing the embroidered series Sketches from Rio based on the salespeople of Rio de Janeiro’s beaches and the traditional ‘plein-air’ sketch.
Her interest in textiles, the human body, clothing and movement has also led her into costume design where she has worked with childrens productions, musicals and provocative political drama/dance with Swedish, African and Iraqi choreografers.
Watson started her visual art studies at Newcastle University in 1995 and in 1996 travelled to Sweden as an exchange student. In 2000 she graduated with a Masters Degree in Textile Art from Gothenburg University, School for Design and Crafts in Sweden (HDK). Since graduating she has been exhibiting in Australia and internationally.
She has been teaching fashion drawing and screenprinting for the past seven years and is represented at the Gothenburg City Arts Council, in private art collections and has received the Swedish Artists Associations (KRO) One Year Artists Working Grant and the Gothenburg City Arts Grant among other grants and prizes for her work.
The patterns, colours and textures of plants inspire me; enlarging these to create compositions I move the identity of the plant into another context. I have previously worked with cold climate plants and am now interested in looking at the tropical plants of Rimbun Dahan and what they reveal. I aim to continue exploring the themes of identity, surface and contact using the garden plants of Rimbun Dahan and Malaysian butterflies as sources of inspiration.
Cover of Jessica’s catalogue for Gecko on My Shoulder, featuring Surviving Paradise (detail), 2010, fabric ink, oil pastel, pencil & cotton embroidery thread on cotton, 60 x 140 cm.
‘Good things happen in threes’, 2010, watercolour & gouache on paper, 21 x 15 cm.
Curriculum Vitae
2000
1998
1996-97
1995-96
Education
Master of Fine Arts and Applied Crafts HDK, Göteborgs Universitet
Bachelor of Textiles, HDK, Göteborg Universitet
Undergraduate Student, HDK, Göteborg Universitet
Undergraduate Student, Newcastle University Australia
Exhibitions
Sketches from Rio, Art in Motion, Frank & Ernest
Sketches from Rio, Galleri mitt i centrum, Gothenburg, Sweden
Sketches from Rio, Galleri Mosebacke, Stockholm, Sweden
Broderia Fantasia, Floras Rike Gallery, Botanical Gardens, Gothenburg
Butterfly Stomach & Hunter, Gothenburg City Library
Hunter, Galleri D Lyx, Malmö, Sweden
wouldwork, Knot Gallery, Sydney, Australia
Watt Space, Newcastle, Australia
Omfång, 25m2 Stockholm, Formargruppen Malmö, Galleri 5 Visby
flickers, Gothenburg, Sweden
Talente, Munich, Germany
Omfång, Galleri Koch, Stenungsund, Sweden
Masters Exhibition, Rohsska Museét, Gothenburg, Sweden
Under det blå tacket, Magnus & Magnus, Gothenburg, Sweden
Centrum, Frölunda Kulturhuset, Frölunda, Sweden
HDK 150 år, Rohsska Muséet, Gothenburg
Karin and Carl Larsson, Nordiska Museét, Stockholm, Sweden
Suecos, Centro Cultural La Santa, Barcelona, Spain
Den Lilla Svarta, Rohsska Muséet, Gothenburg
Grants
Konstnärsnämnden (Swedish Artists’ Committee) One year Artists’ Working Grant
Företagarna (Association for small businesses in Sweden)
Konstnärsnämnden (Swedish Artists’ Committee)
Gothenburg City Arts Grant
Markarna Lindeqvists Scholarship
Estrid Ericsons Scholarship – group
Slöjdskolans Scholarship
Anna Ahrenbergs Scholarship
Goteborg&Co sponsorship
Stiftelsen Erik och Lily Philipsons Minnesfonds’ Scholarship
Theodor och Hanne Mannheimers fund
Slöjdskolans Scholarship
University of Newcastle Student Exchange Scholarship
2008
Represented
Gothenburg City Arts council
2007
2000
1999
1998
1996
Prizes
Golden needle, Täcklebo Embroidery Academy, Sweden, silver needle prize
World Wide Wool, Australia
Near Distance, Lochem, The Netherlands, 2nd prize
Fashion Design Competition, Barcelona, Spain, 1st prize
Hunter Institute of Technology, Mardi Gras Costume Design, 3rd prize
