Offshoot of the Aftermath

TRANSITION SERIES NO. 91... acrylic and oil, 50.7 × 76.5 cm, 1992.

TRANSITION SERIES NO. 75... acrylic and oil, 25.2 × 25.3 cm, 1992.

We had 'Aftermath' - an exhibition by
artist Anthony Chan Sai Weng. Now,
1½ years later, we have 'Transition'.
OOI KOK CHUEN reports...

IN Anthony Chan Sai Weng's world of chaos, there are pockets of calm, shimmering-like little oases where one perennially seeks refuge in, or which beckon with their promise of solace.

This is the genesis of Transition, the offshoot of the Aftermath series of the 43-year-old artist.

The incipient sparks of Transition were first unveiled in Chan's sixth solo at the Bangunan MAS in Kuala Lumpur in October 1990, and the continuing saga will be seen 1½ years later at Galeri Maybank this Tuesday until May 26.

Transition records the transformation within his restless spirit, as it peels through, and rips in parts, the layers upon layers of fabric that shield the real world deep within, with light bouncing off little hidden passages and sunken areas.

"It's like a story told in different times, different era, different chapters - all related to the same title but maybe of different character, environment and mood," volunteers Chan, who has taken six months' nopay leave from his job as animator/graphic designer (Educational TV) in the Education Ministry to prepare for this solo show.

"It is a compact, detailed story. Anybody can come and look at it and reveal his own feelings."

The solo will show 60 of his works in acrylic cum oil on illustration boards and a few on canvases, including 10 done in 1990. All the works are framed with acid-free backing.

Chan uses oil first for his foundation colours and lets it dry before applying acrylic with a brush and spatula.

His works are a process of transformation, of a point in time. The images may be culled from fantasy, but the inspirations are things related to everyday life, the world around him and Nature.

But compared to the soaring imagination of his Aftermath and its cosmic imagery and sense of infinitive vastness, Transition shows a more restrained quality, and seem to suggest more focused segments of space.

The composition also looks more free, certainly more cataclysmic with splintered calligraphic forms hurtling in wild disarray.

Violet, green, ultramarine or yellow ochre, the palette is pockmarked with dark shades for contrast, depth or to suggest spheres of the unknown, and hence a whiff of mystery.

Dark blue base-colour suggesting night in No. 80 (79.2 × 51cm, 1992) forms the nocturnal stage where ghostly wraiths of faceted plant-like forms dance under the light of the silvery moon, the ethereal forms emphasised by the thread-bare lines blowing in the wind.

CHAN... 'a revelation of oppositional balance'

‘It's like a story told in
different times,
different era, different
chapters – all related to
the same title but
maybe of a different
character,
environment and
mood.
- Anthony Chan

Despite the becalming cocoon of darkness, usually shown by darker shades of colours rather than black itself, there are bouts of activity all around.

But the fragile figures seem oblivious to it all, wrapped in their own private worlds.

“The Transition is a revelation of oppositional balance: that from destruction comes hope and harmony,” says Chan in his doublestorey rented house in Medan Damansara, Kuala Lumpur.

His upstairs studio overlooks a hillslope jungle densely covered with trees where birds, insects and monkeys find sanctuary and where he draws inspiration from.

“It is a metamorphosis of life that with obstacles in our life, there is always a ray of hope, a light, a goal.”

In Transition, there is the strife for harmony in the face of chaos as seen in the disintegrating tissues of change, hot and cold colours are juxtaposed as are the hard and soft, and the static is pitted against the rhythm of movements.

“I hope they don't denude the hills and chop down the trees,” he says possessively, alluding to the condominiums that have sprouted all over Bangsar and Bukit Damansara over what were once pristinely green slopes.

“I have a feeling that I am moving towards something and that Transition will not take as long as the Aftermath series,” Chan confides. The Aftermath, which started in 1983, took seven years and lasted 180 works.

TRANSITION SERIES NO. 104... acrylic and oil, 76.5 × 57.1 cm, 1993

One work, No. 104, stands out for the long hard sharp line that brusquely cuts the picture in the centre, forming an emeraldgreen promontory on the left.

No. 102 looks like a still life of a bouquet of flowers (76.5 × 101.5 cm, 1993), while No. 93 (19 × 25.5cm, 1993) shows unusual play of rainbow colours.

A monstrous floating blob like a spaceship coming out of a fissure takes centrestage in No. 87 (50.8 × 76.6, 1992), while No. 107 (76.4 × 50.9cm, 1993), with its smoother sand-dune topography, harks back to his Aftermath.

The turbulent green and yellow in No. 89 (50.9 × 76.5cm, 1992) dissipate to unveil a cave - an invitation into uncharted territory.

No. 96 reminds one of some rock formations like Yeliu's in Taiwan.

Chan has another body of works of ink drawings of zombie-like figures in a denuded apocalyptic landscape which falls under the Aftermath series.

For Chan, his paintings are an escape into another dimension of space, and medium, from his main occupation as illustrator, caricaturist and animator.

Though he has shown excellence in these fields as proven by the clutch of awards given him, he keeps these separate from his ink and acrylic cum oil works.

He won a French Government scholarship to do multi-media audio-visual video animation in Paris in 1984 and 1985.

He also won the special prize in graphic design for the TV Pendidikan programme Theorem Pythagoras in Tokyo, Japan, in 1981, and the designer/animator award for the TVP programme Show Me The Way in the Sony ICD video contest in Tokyo in 1986.

He again won for The Healthy Environment (silver prize) and The Super Spy (merit award) in the Sony ICD 1988 and 1992 contests respectively.

Chan held his first solo at Anthony Sum's Art Gallery in November 1982, which was followed by two solos in France - the first at the FIAP (Foyer Internationale d' Accueil de Paris) in February 1985 and the other in Galerie Sordini Marseille France in November/December 1988.

Where his play of rich colour tones and provocative forms are leading to is a journey of discovery for the artist as well as for the viewer.