Guris — Fauzulyusri

The Ringmaster’s Dermis

by Gina Fairley

17 Jalan Pawang 54000 Kuala Lumpur T +603 4251 4396 F +603 4251 4331 taksu@taksu.com www.taksu.com

Brochure © 2011 TAKSU Malaysia Artworks and Images © 2011 fauzulyusri

cover & counter cover; Guris 137 x 137 cm mixed media on canvas 2011

Julian Schnabel famously wrote in 1978, “I want my life to be embedded in my work, crushed into my paintings, like a pressed car.

If it’s not, my work is just some stuff.” 1 Fauzulyusri’s artworks brim with life – his life.

Core to his making, like Schnabel’s quote, is a fusion of surface and self, not merely as an expressive gesture or stylistic choice but rather like a scar that we wear, describing memory and time – a totally unique patina.

I am reminded of Filipino artist Manuel Ocampo’s description of painting as “...that which goes beyond thought... an accumulator of ideas which scatter and overlap as form, color, matter, proportion.” 2

2

1

2

RIGHT

“Theories and documents of Contemporary Art: A sourcebook of Artists’ writing”, Ed Kristine Stiles and Peter Selz, University of California Press, 1996, pg. 266

Email conversations between Gina Fairley and Manuel Ocampo August – November 2010

Seniman 137 x 137 cm mixed media on canvas 2011

The very title of Fauzulyusri’s most recent body of work, Guris [scratch], points us towards this understanding of painting Ocampo describes, one that sits beyond our compulsion for meaning. Despite providing viewers with triggers that help navigate us toward conventional understanding a word or a figure for example – more interesting is the way Fauzulyusri refocuses the image towards surface – the painting’s epidermis. Clearly, for him the mark, the scratch and colour have increasingly become the subject, not the figure or its narrative.

LEFT

RIGHT

Blue Mask 91 x 91 cm mixed media on canvas 2011

Guris 137 x 137 cm mixed media on canvas 2011

Take the small painting Artist for example.

The word identifies the subject, however it is not the story of an artist we are told.

Rather it is a story of texture; of the graphic qualities of a circle as it floats on contrasting fields; it is the balance of a horizontal and vertical line framing the portrait; and it is the spatial dynamics of composition as the image seemingly slides to the bottom edge of the canvas under its weight. There is a healthy irreverence for fine art traditions and, yet on the other hand, a revered embrace of painting for the sheer pleasure of painting.

While identifiable as a self-portrait one could suggest, metaphorically, the artist as subject is pressed into this painting, just as Schnabel’s crushed car, merely becoming the delivery device for the material.

6

RIGHT

Artist 20 x 25 cm mixed media on canvas board 2011

It is a curious approach and if anything is more closely aligned to abstract expressionism than traditional portraiture.

As Fauzul explained in a recent conversation, “Foremost, my works are a response to the formalistic approach to my canvases.

Guris is about lines, Raw is about a process, Play is about layers, and Ground is about surface.” 3 Referring to exhibitions that span the last five years, clearly materiality is the consistent thread to finding new expression – new meaning in his art.

LEFT

3

Each Other 183 x 244 cm mixed media on canvas 2011

In email conversation with writer Gina Fairley, June 2011

9

Turning again to the title of this exhibition it reiterates the importance of process.

On a cursory look we are struck by the lightness of Fauzul’s paintings, their child-like sensibility and everyday subjects. His palette dwells in the primary and his compositions are generally placed on a solid ground, isolating and emphasising their graphic effect. They are the techniques of illustration and advertising. However in the hands of Fauzulyusri these devices are used to transport the viewer beyond the subject matter to what I am calling the dermis of his painting – that layer below the skin.

LEFT

RIGHT

Matrix 107 x 107 cm mixed media on canvas 2011

Me 107 x 107 cm mixed media on canvas 2011

13

LEFT

Starman 137 x 137 cm mixed media on canvas 2011 An interesting metaphor that perhaps better illustrates this idea is the practice of ‘scratching’, the creative abrasion of a DJs turntable resulting in their signature expression. The ‘original’ track is secondary to the ‘created’ track. The scratch is the soul, ‘that which goes beyond thought ‘, as Ocampo described, and an abstraction that no longer relies on identification of the original source.

14

RIGHT

Sekuntum 91 x 91 cm mixed media on canvas 2011

Such abstract readings of Fauzul’s paintings need not feel uncomfortable. This is largely a show of portraits: a friend, a female, a couple, and fellow artists. They are likenesses painted with words, associations and allusion, traditionally information that surrounds and extends the character or status of the sitter. This is where these new paintings of Fauzul’s start to become really interesting. ‘Context’ is a word under attack in anthropological and curatorial circles today, where identity and histories are being re/written using the idea of networks rather than nation or territory. Likewise, the context of the sitter is dragged into the 21st century.

What then does this surface matter tell us – Fauzul’s scratch? One answer is simply that it leads us to soul of the painting that sits somewhere between subject and self.

18

PREVIOUS SPREAD

RIGHT

Play with Donkey 152 x 244 cm mixed media on canvas 2011

Woman 183 x 183 cm mixed media on canvas 2011

Using a foundation of plaster cement and modelling paste, Fauzul carves into the surface with wire, knives, screwdrivers – basic tools at hand revealing threads of under-colour. It is a sophisticated understanding of positive and negative space, a contrasting line that sits both behind and in front of the surface. Like a ringmaster he commands his pictures with canniness caught between play and introversion. It is charming and intelligent, and yet there is a latent violence in the physical action of scoring and scratching. In popular culture terms we best understand it through the tattoo, the aggressive invasion of the epidermis to beautify or tag the body.

LEFT

Nakhoda 137 x 137 cm mixed media on canvas 2011

21

22

RIGHT

Partner 137 x 137 cm mixed media on canvas 2011

Weight also becomes a condition of these new works. While in the past we have celebrated the lightness and lyrical qualities of Fauzul’s paintings, these new works are more cognizant of surface depth. Artist is dense with plaster, its surface tension adding a psychological weight to the subject, while in the painting You and Me the layers are extremely refined, controlled, allowing the figures to levitate. Furthermore, working back in to, and over, the paintings with charcoal and pencil Fauzul adds another layer adding to their ambiguities and texture.

LEFT

You and Me 122 x 213 cm mixed media on canvas 2011

25

It is not surprising then that Fauzulyusri has turned to printmaking for the first time.

The relief print is a natural progression where the drawn line is carved into a plate, in this case lino, flipping between a negative and positive read when inked up and transferred to paper. Their graphic clarity reminds me of the Asian traditions of Chinese paper cuts, batik stamps and shadow puppets.

Limiting himself to a solid color works twofold: it heightens contrast and calls on symbolism. While we immediate think of red’s associations: anger, danger, sacrifice, warning, the socialist spirit, and passion, for Fauzulyusri it is a more elemental choice. “I chose red because it attracts the positive line in the image�.

262

RIGHT

Rerama 20 x 25 cm lino print on canvas 2011

We are talking about language here – garis / guris – is an abstraction that uses media in non-traditional ways to forge, immerse and alter the way we view our surroundings. In contemporary terms, red is key to the RGB color system, the primary arbiter in how we define the world around us.

I can’t help but return to Schnabel’s words and inseparability of art and life – the blood line of the image. As Fauzul says, ‘...the things that have made a ‘scratch’ in my life.’

We go full circle.

LEFT

RIGHT

Fellow 91 x 91 cm mixed media on canvas 2011

Dreamer 137 x 137 cm mixed media on canvas 2011

BIOGRAPHY

1974 fauzulyusri, kedah, malaysia

ACADEMIC

P U B L I C AT I O N S

1999 degree in fine art (drawing) uitm

shah alam selangor

2011

2007

2007

2006

2005

2004

2001

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2011 2009

2007 2006 2004 2003 2001

C L O CK W I S E F R O M TO P L E F T

Mr. Kuat Couple Hungry Buaya Plastik Robosex Sikuntum 20 x 25 cm lino print on canvas 2011

guris taksu kuala lumpur raw taksu kuala lumpur play taksu singapore ground taksu kuala lumpur neolithic taksu kuala lumpur pop primitive galeriiizu, kuala lumpur cages eq fine arts, kuala lumpur works on canvas eq fine arts, kl

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

local and international group exhibitions in malaysia singapore, brunei, indonesia hong kong, u.a.e and u.k

AWARDS

2004

2002

2000

special mention prize kijang awards bank negara malaysia kuala lumpur special mention awards the young contemporaries national art gallery kuala lumpur insentive awards shah alam gallery

gina fairley the ringmaster’s dermis guris essay exhibition catalogue gina fairley conceptual tiling raw exhibition catalogue gina fairley come together fab4 exhibition essay gina fairley play exhibition catalogue jagatheswary narayanan ‘karya imbasan nostalgia’ kosmo, december 24 associate professor mohd khalil amran ‘ground’, exhibition catalogue ridzwan a.rahim,‘different strokes’ new straits times, july 7 associate professor dr muliyadi mahamood ‘fauzulyusri imajan silam pengucapan baru’ dewan budaya, february (pop primitive, exhibition catalogue) yusof ghani ‘fauzul’s sensual communicator’, (pop primitive exhibition catalogue) rudy irwan shukaime ‘dunia pop primitif fauzul’ kosmo, february 28 azran jaffar ‘fauzul ketengah pop primitif’, berita minggu, october 3 melissa sellvadurai ‘land before time’ klue, september 16 barbara fong ‘fauzul’s journey on canvas’, new straits times, sept 11 yelena guzman ‘modern yet primitive’ sunday star, september 5, 2004 laura fan ‘legacy of abstract expressionism’, the edge, july 2

31

Thanks for all, ada rasa ada kaseh fauzulyusri 2011 guris solo exhibition

32

Essay Gina Fairley Printer Unico Services

Catalog concept & design jeff@studio25.my

Cover stock Invercote G 330gsm Inside pages Exel Bulky 130gsm

Brochure Š 2011 TAKSU Malaysia Artworks and Images Š 2011 fauzulyusri

All rights reserved.

No part of this brochure may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronically, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior consent from the artists and gallery.