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THE YOUTH EXPERIENCE
My exhibition explores the youth experience, and how I have perceived my everyday life and things I surround myself with. My works initially explored my own personal experiences with this theme, and grappling with my own sense of reality through my own growth and efforts to discover myself on a deeper level through depicting them in my art. While walking through my exhibition you are immersing yourself in an intimate space where I portray my traumas, struggles, and experiences and the perspective I have towards my own life through the influences and experiences used.
The central theme that connects these artworks together, The Youth Experience was inspired by my own, through film cameras that had reminded me of imagery from Wong Kar Wai’s films and Christopher Doyle’s cinematography. In my art I explored the gritty truth of being a teenager in a society that corrupts our perception of youth. Affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, my work reflects the mental state that had trapped me while isolating through the lockdowns that had plagued Malaysia’s economy. I expose my own insecurities and struggles in the pieces I have chosen to exhibit to create intimacy in order to depict the highs and lows I have faced growing up.
The exhibition opens with “Are you hungry?”, a very personal piece that refers to my struggles growing up as a girl in an environment with impossible beauty standards that has taken a significant toll on my mental and physical health. Starting with such a provoking piece is crucial as it is the most pivotal piece of the exhibition, starting the discussion of struggles that tormented my teenage years so consistently. The exhibition proceeds with a textile piece, titled “the old familiar sting”, which portrays the nature of traumatic events and its impacts on our consciousness. The use of textiles reflect the fragility of human emotion and my own consciousness as seen in its delicate and flexible structure, as it it stretched over the frame. As we move along the exhibition, I depict the truth of everyday life by portraying the negative aspects of life in moments we value as leisure and enjoyable such as smoking or simply surrounding yourself with friends. This is shown in “the youth express”, “a break out reality”, and “unfinished”. The piece “the silent killer” brings forward modern issues like how western imperialism has degraded cultural traits in Malaysia. Another piece depicting the negative traits of growing up, I decided to make this a very close and personal one by portraying how it feels to grow up in a country with harsh censorship laws and limited freedom of speech. Inspired by Malaysian controversial artist Fahmi Reza, “are you such a dreamer?” critiques censorship laws in Malaysia and its war on drugs, a sensitive topic amongst Malaysian law.
The exhibition ends with the piece “Are you sick?”, linking back to the first piece, “Are you hungry”, as a reference to Radiohead’s “We suck young blood”, a social commentary on the impact society can have on a person; wearing them out, beating them down, in essence "sucking" the "young blood" from them. This piece explores the routine we are trapped in, ending up in the same position as we do every day, normally over a sink washing your face before going to bed. This links back to the theme of the first piece, as although overcoming this struggle and coming to terms with my true self, I find myself ending up in the place I was before, kickstarting this routine of hurting my own self through purging.
1. Are you hungry?
acrylic on canvas
46x61cm
Influenced by the imagery of Basquiat, Otto Dix, and Rembrandt, I explore my personal struggles with body image issues and anxiety, the self portrait in blue reflects my inner turmoils through the cold, dark colours juxtaposed with the bright red lines representing the bones that build my figure. Struggling with body dysmorphia almost all my life, at times, I don’t know what I actually look like. The bones are unaffected by my mental health therefore it stands out against the rest of my bod
2. The old familiar sting
Textiles
31x41cm
Battling past traumas and grievances, it has left “holes'' in my memory, ones I wish I could patch back up and sew together to obtain a better sense of self. I used a needle and thread to patch up the holes in the fabric, alluding to my own efforts of healing from my own traumas. Referencing the song “Hurt” by Johnny Cash, the title of this piece refers to the pain one goes through while trying to patch up old traumas, revisiting them in hopes to heal from what caused the hurting.
3. The youth express
acrylic on canvas
51x51cm
Inspired by the cinematography of Christopher Doyle in Wong Kar Wai films, I looked at my own memories through my own film images that have green hues and vignette Doyle incorporates in his work, showing this by painting the image in these colours and exaggerating the warped effect in the background seen in the wood panels. Capturing a moment in time as it is, unable to check and retake multiple times reinforces that the imagery in this piece was a raw, unedited moment in time.
4. A break out reality
acrylic on canvas
30.5x30.5cm
Through the Covid-19 lockdown, classes were held remotely through the software Zoom, where students were often put in “breakout rooms” to have a more intimate, personal discussion, ironic as the students were in truth further apart than usual. The title references this because as students, we had to face the fact that remote learning and online meetings was the reality that would last for a while, a reality we had to live with for months.
5. Unfinished
Acrylic and spray paint on canvas
91x92cm
Mounted on an easel and accompanied by art supplies, this piece was used as a medium to portray a moment in time, as depicted in the red spray painting on the canvas that creates a nostalgic effect, reminiscing our playful teenage years. The incorporation of natural elements was inspired by Robert Rauschenberg, and represents the futility of time, fleeting away every second, reinforcing the idea of an unfinished memory, as we are constantly moving on from one moment to another.
6. The silent killer
Clay and recycled materials
28 x 27 x 4cm
Lighting seemingly harmless sticks of escape, we distract ourselves by indulging in what we see as enjoyable. Cigarettes have been deemed as the “silent killer”, demonised in almost all communities. I thought this would be a smart medium to deliver the idea that exposes the true silent killers of our society, TNCs that destroy culture through the gentrification of heritage sites and our growing dependency on these corporations, as can be seen in the peranakan-style ashtray ruined by the ash.
7. Are you such a dreamer?
Acrylic on canvas
50x50cm
Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998, artists creating provocative and offensive political art will be prosecuted. Inspired by Fahmi Reza, a Malaysian radical artist who has been detained and assaulted by the state for offending political leaders through his art, I intend to critique censorship and drug laws in Malaysia by exposing the figure’s anatomy representing the lack of privacy we are forced into, and the phrase stating the figure’s narcotic state
8. Are you sick?
Acrylic on canvas
45.5x61cm
I am trapped in a routine that ends over the sink, washing my face, brushing my teeth, or reflecting on the way I looked throughout the day. The routine shown in my art refers to the process of healing a disorder that had plagued a large portion of my life. Although I have grown significantly from my lowest struggle, I find myself coming back to unhealthy coping mechanisms, going back to the same routine that defined my mentality, showing that the process of healing will always include moments of relapse.
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