SHALINI GANENDRA FINE ART ADVISORY @ Gallery Residence 1€¦ · Combined elements of art and...

1SHALINI GANENDRA FINE ART ADVISORY @ Gallery Residence

SHALINI GANENDRA FINE ART ADVISORY @ Gallery Residence 2

SGFA @ GALLERY RESIDENCE hosts The Summer Vignettes 2018 (SVE), featuring a selection of dynamicMalaysian artists and designers, in a celebration of inter-disciplinary skill.

Established and emerging Malaysian artists: Haris Abadi, Azliza Ayob, Al-Khuzairie Ali, Shaq Koyok, ZacLee, Zulkifli Lee, Kim Ng, Zelin Seah, Elias Yamani Bin Ismail, and new comer, VinSze Yong, (recentlyreturned from UK graduate art study) – present exciting works in a mixture of mediums (works on paper,canvas, wall sculpture and ceramic).

SVE also feature works by Malaysian designers Super Struxture, SND and DAPO, showcasing materiallighting , elegant feasting ware and funky furniture design.

Combined elements of art and design create a wonderfully symbiotic aesthetic that compliments andenhances the SGFA ethos of living with art. In celebration of self-empowerment and local talent, SummerVignettes also celebrates Malaysia’s contemporary creativity

Shalini GanendraDirector, SGFA


Azliza Ayob ‘s artistic intent lies in converting any form of existing negativity into the execution of abeautifully powerful piece of art. She has exhibited her works both locally and internationally in countriessuch as Japan, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Known for her collage work, the artist’s main aim with this particular mode of media is to give newmeaning to existing, popular images. For her, collage involves a well thought out plan and process, toproduce striking visuals and deliver effective and meaningful narratives.

Ayob gains inspiration from the simplicity of life and obtaining validation out of her ability to inspire otherswith her work, by reviving old items and objects through the act of recycling and injecting a new, creativelife into them. Azliza strongly retains the belief that art is truly a way of life, not solely subjected to themaking of artwork, but also recognizing and acknowledging its presence within her daily affairs.


Haris Abadi is the emerging artist known for his innovative method of incorporating new media and the digital into his fine art practice. His interests in animation and motion graphics drew him to study the traditional elements of traditional shadow puppetry, and Abadi has incorporated elements from this field into his new media art practice. His current practice of classic arcade game loop animation, Extra Life, shown in the KL Biennale, revisits themes of an earlier body of work, the POHON Series, exhibited now at SGFA.

POHON is a reflection based on the study of the The Tree of Life. Using a myriad of modern-day digital interface logos and symbols, Abadi visually creates the tree in the digital world, attempting to understand the present through the window of the future, as The Tree of Life symbolizes the universe – the levels and layers of life – concerning the relationship among human and also the human connection with the Creator.

Abadi is currently completing a Doctorate within the Faculty of Creative Technology and Heritage, at the University of Malaysia, Kelantan and has exhibited widely since 2005, both locally and internationally.


Zelin Seah enlists a variety of mediums in the service of exploring contemporary life and socioeconomics.He has launched a number of exhibitions in Malaysia and internationally including at the Saatchi Gallery.

In his recent artistic practice, Seah addresses the shifting landscape of contemporary art through referenceto artistic tradition. Drawing inspiration, and sometimes materials, from his career as a fine art teacher,Seah’s new series presents a dialogue between the cutting edge and the classical, between contemporaryinnovation and traditional art study. Through painting and sculpture, installation, and participation, thesetensions are brought to the fore and cracked open for investigation.

Seah’s black and white layering brush method allows for structure like inner section that cannot be viewthrough surface; thus, his paintings are more complicated than what can be captured through the eye.Seah’s work suggests an interconnected space, forming the hidden structure and law in life, through suchfragmented portrayal.


As a leading name in Malaysian contemporary art, with a specific expertise in unique works createdthrough mixed printing techniques, Kim has a broad, multi-disciplinary and experimental art practice. Ng isinterested in lived environments and the marks humans leave on the places they pass through. Graffiti,and marks left on streets and roads, serve as motifs in many of his works. Many of these are lifted fromthe places in Malaysia he is most familiar with: Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh and Johor.

Kim lived and studied in the UK for about 12 years. Upon his return to Malaysia is 2002, so much hadchanged and the contrasts of memory and present inspired a fascination with the urban and a sense ofnostalgia taken in his artistic practice. Kim Ng regards himself as an observer and recorder, continuallyutilizing the busy city streets as a long-standing source of inspiration, practicing his belief that in order tounderstand society one needs to step out into the streets and observe the realities out there.


Zulkifli Lee’s creative practice explores the relationship of personalized and impersonalized forms as well asthe language of materials. With a developing and technical multidisciplinary practice, Lee works withpainting, sculpture, prints and installation, preferring to challenge with organic and unconventionalmediums. Using the materiality of selected mediums, he continuously explores physicality, visualproperties, and phenomenology.

Lee’s motifs usually employ systematic, geometric images intertwined with elements of change andchance. Moving away from total control, he submits part of the image making to natural laws of chance,forming visuals that are facilitated by controlled method but affected by natural developments. Bybridging this contemporary art practice with traditional philosophies and reflection, both linked to hiscultural background and faith, Lee's work shows a thoughtful symbiosis of current and traditional.

Zulkifli Lee completed his M.A. in Fine Art & Technology at Universiti Teknologi MARA in 2013 and hasexhibited widely with a strong local and regional collector base.


Elias’ trademark is undoubtedly his unconventional approach to art as an ever-changing explorationplayground. This established Malaysian artist, following the ‘do it yourself’ concept, creates artworks bytransforming mundane everyday life materials and objects into something meaningfully new. Art is aboutopening windows, and Elias wishes to give people a new outlook on the beauty of common things.

Well aware of today’s ever-changing art context, Elias wants to stimulate an artistic debate. In 2008, hefounded the SATU, a creative collective which offers many opportunities for visual arts program. Thecollective aims at promoting debate and exchange between artists and also at exploring different artconcept. In 2012, he also initiated a registered NGO known as Pertubuhan Pengkarya Seni Kuala LumpurDan Selangor (Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Arts Organisation).


Hailing from the Temuan tribe of Peninsular Malaysia, Shaq sees himself as a spokesperson for theIndigenous Malay Orang Asli. Fuelled by a pivotal moment in his childhood when the jungle surroundinghis village, Pulau-Kempas, was blocked off by the government for commercial purposes, Shaq's workperforms a double purpose: it acts both as an homage to nature as provider and sanctuary, and also as acritique of issues dealing with indigenous identity, land rights and illegal logging.

As part of his life, nature continues to be a significant theme for Shaq's art practice. He works in a varietyof mediums including oils and acrylics, sometimes combining them with natural elements such as soil. ForSGFA’s ROOTS exhibition, Shaq commissioned 6 mats of Pandanus weave by his mother Lopo Pipeh and hisaunt Inak Habeh, as the canvas for his portraits. Koyok’s mother is a master weaver and often uses thePandanus leaf. Koyok applauds the power of Australian and Canadian indigenous artists, whom he respectsfor their fearlessness and vocal address of issues and cultural preservation.

Shaq contrasts such qualities to those of the Malay indigenous who, he considers, more reserved, gentleand never really in a "fighting mode"


Anniketyni Madian has been practicing as a sculptor since 2008, working primarily with wood, andgraduated from the Universiti Teknologi Mara in 2009 with a B.A in Fine Art (Sculpture). Her works drawupon her Sarawakian heritage, embodying elements of Pua Kumbu textiles, traditionally woven by theDayak women of Sarawak, used in rituals and ceremonies. Madian is also influenced by works of sculptorsReuben Margolin, Theo Jansen, Louise Nevelson, as well as engineers and architects.

The wooden sculptures are large but intimate; structured, yet organic; powerful, yet delicate. Her works,reference both ying and yang – to the tradition of women’s weaving and presented in the wood carvingmedium that requires strength to master. Madian constructs all works herself. Of her own practice, shesays, “My sculptures are the product of an intensely detailed process, representing an atmosphere ofmovement in static design.”


Receiving a strong training in traditional Chinese painting genres, Zac Lee embraces the technical rigor oflong-established painting practice while also experimenting with contemporary mediums. He appropriatestraditional folklore and national iconography for his contemporary discipline as well as producing thematicworks around individual and community. By combining and adapting already weighted imagery and textfrom folklore, Lee at once subverts the sources’ original meaning and renews their signifying possibilities.

Choosing to work in oil, he is able to create commanding pieces with a palette that is both subtle andenigmatic, showing dynamic motion; developing a sharp contrast between illusionary myth and descriptivepainting. In his current practice, he uses animalistic symbology to allude to principles within the currentMalaysian socio-political situation. He captures a dark realism in these depictions where icons of Malaysia’sgovernment become animalistic.

Exploring the question of how much free thought one is able to have in a controlling institution; thefighting fish speaks to in-fighting; roosters symbolize civil responsibility, courage and confidence.


As a young emerging Malaysian artist, VinSze Yong’s art practice is characterised by a myriad of orchestrated mediums and textiles used in conjunction to provoke ideas of different consumer experiences. With a developing practice, Yong works with installation, paper engineering, printmaking, letterpress and textile art.

Her body of work sits within a grey area, exploring between craft, fine art and illustration. Using both materiality and the materiality’s histories, she investigates the creative field outside an otherwise digitally oriented culture. Her current focus is on the relationship between identity and physical appearance, particularly on human face. Informed by the perception of identity that is currently continually changing and evolving, parallel to the transformation of the cultural, scientific and technological perspectives of a globalized world, Yong questions our modern identification of the individual.

In one series, The Concealment, she has painstakingly created hand-made masks that counter the new phenomenon that our own faces have become the canvas for the physical masks we hide behind. The mask is a face. It is at once an interpretation, a denial, a hideout and a new identity.

Yong completed her M.A. in Illustration at The University of Hertfordshire, 2016, after a B.A in Graphic Design from Notting Trent University, 2013.


Al-Khuzairie Ali is part of a new generation of ceramicists, pushing beyond conventional boundaries of themedium, combining the mould with manufactured objects.

The featured two works address both the positive and negative impacts of human interactions withanimals, the latter including illegal poaching, reservation of endangered habitats, illegal export, gamblingand extinction. Khuzairie uses combinations of ceramic and steel in his unsettling presentations of animalson the road to extinction, an issue he regards as one of the scariest of our time.

Khuzairie’s works have been exhibited internationally in South Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia and theNetherlands, and the artist has participated in prestigious residency programmes. He representedMalaysia in the 2011 Gyeonggi International Ceramix Biennale, Republic of Korea, and was awarded anHonourable Mention. His works are collected by various institutions and private collectors, including theNational Visual Arts Gallery Malaysia.


SUPER STRUXTURE , a new Malaysian furniture and advisory company, is the brainchild of MUKK founders,Chia Yi Sim and Vivian Shi Wei. SS utilizes their creative talent, design thinking and business acumen tosolve existing problems from product design to societal challenges, in addition to the importance oforiginal design and sustainable manufacturing.


MUKK is a home-grown lifestyle brand founded in 2015, with the mission to create sustainable designswith high quality craftsmanship that will last, without polluting the environment with short lifespanproducts.

MUKK is one of the first local lifestyle brands to bridge local craftsmanship with design, in partnership withMalaysian award-winning craftsmanship, and are proudly 100% designed and made in Malaysia.


Anniketyni Madian has been practicing as a sculptor since 2008, working primarily with wood, andgraduated from the Universiti Teknologi Mara in 2009 with a B.A in Fine Art (Sculpture). Her works drawupon her Sarawakian heritage, embodying elements of Pua Kumbu textiles, traditionally woven by theDayak women of Sarawak, used in rituals and ceremonies. Madian is also influenced by works of sculptorsReuben Margolin, Theo Jansen, Louise Nevelson, as well as engineers and architects.

Her wooden sculptures are often large but intimate; structured, yet organic; powerful, yet delicate. Herworks, reference both ying and yang and also the tradition of women’s weaving - presented in the woodcarving medium that requires strength to master. Madian constructs all works herself.


Dapo was founded in 2016 by “Green Carpenter” Harith Ridzuan, a designer maker hailing from KualaLumpur, Malaysia. As the eldest out of 10 siblings, Harith leads the family’s 23-year old furniture makingbusiness as a second-generation woodworker and has made over 500 different pieces in his career.

Dapo, which derives from the original Bahasa Malaysia word “Dapur” to mean kitchen or cooking stove,offers food enthusiasts with stylish wooden kitchenware made from Malaysia’s harvested, sustainablewood. Dapo was inspired by the woodworking family’s huge passion for food. As hearty eaters andpassionate amateur chefs, the family is no stranger to cooking and hosting large gatherings that centresaround delicious home-made local cuisines. It was only natural then for them to share their special rangeof kitchenware to reflect on the important fusion of design, gastronomy, and family.


Stephanie Ng Design is a multi-award winning industrial design studio, headquartered in Kuala Lumpur.Stephanie uses combinations of colors, textures, forms and loves to transform unique materials to makethe ordinary special, while retaining an underlying signature of cultural elements. She is dedicated tomaking products that retain their functional edge and work harmoniously in relation to a space orsystem. She believes that good design should have cohesive synergy with its surroundings rather thanjust as a standalone inanimate object.

Stephanie Ng Design are an advocate of sustainable design, and designing systems that have minimalimpact on the Earth’s resources, in terms of manufacturing processes, materials and energyconsumption. Their award-winning handmade pendant lamp, Luna Lana is a perfect example of this. Ituses 100% natural merino wool and no machinery is used to produce them. Ng is committed toproducing unique designs with a cultural twist and a design aesthetic that lasts and endures.

SHALINI GANENDRA FINE ART ADVISORY @ Gallery Residence

With over twenty years of experience and expertise, Shalini Ganendra Fine Art Advisory (SGFA) providesindependent and full-service advisory, ranging from collection management to negotiatingterms/discounts and developing culturing projects. Led by cultural entrepreneur, Shalini Ganendra, SGFApossesses an exceptional level of curatorial intelligence and market expertise, which enables advice on allaspects of collection care, growth and enrichment by recommending acquisitions, collection strategy,publication and institutional connection. SGFA’s Asian specialisation includes featuring creators from andwith connection to Asia.

Shalini Ganendra specialises in Asian Contemporary and Modern Art, with particular focus on emergingregions, and artists connected to Asia. She works closely with clients to formulate thoughtful strategiesfor entire collections or single works of art; to build, maintain and appraise museum quality collections;and to connect collections with institutions. Her expertise also extends to representing clients atauctions, in the salesrooms and in private treaty sales, to negotiate terms and discounts.

Shalini Ganendra sits on committees including: TATE Acquisitions Committee (SAAC) and Sovereign Art Prize. Past positions include: Commonwealth Art Awards (UK); inaugural Caochangdi Photofestival/ Photo d’Arles, (Beijing); and the Smithsonian’s SARF Award (Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship).

SGFA manages the award winning, eco- tech space, Gallery Residence, in Kuala Lumpur, which plays hostto exhibition, projects, programs and events.

No. 8 Lorong 16/7B, Section 16, 46350 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia

T: +603 7932 4740 E: [email protected] W: www.shaliniganendra.com Fb: SGFAInsta: sgfagallery

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