ARTIST PROFILE

Saiful Razman

  • Malaysia (b. 1980)
  • Currently in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Wasting Your Time

Wasting Your Time

  • 2015
  • Enamel on Canvas
  • 146 x 183 cm
  • Vertical Speed No.1 - thumbnail Don't Trust Anybody - thumbnail Only Shallow - thumbnail Wasting Your Time  - thumbnail Open - thumbnail Control - thumbnail Naturalization - thumbnail Wasting Your Time Twice - thumbnail Keep On Lying - thumbnail Orderly White - thumbnail Waves of Fears - thumbnail Faithless - thumbnail Ocean Spray - thumbnail The Sea - thumbnail Massive Attack - thumbnail

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    Vertical Speed @ Richard Koh Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur | 2015

The development of Saiful Razman’s practice is hard to categorize. The Kuala Lumpur-based artist has produced a plethora of artworks each approached with varying conceptual strategies and contexts over the years. Previous works range from lightboxes, installation, prints and sculptures employing a diverse range of materials such as tape, acrylic and many more. Since 2012 and in his solo exhibition “Ereksi Jeneral” at Richard Koh Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, the artist has introduced painting, predominantly abstract painting as an important language in his practice. Framed within the context of a Malaysian practice, his works and paintings from this period lean towards being a vocal political voice, re-employing images and formal element from popular culture and local politics, making fun at established power. His current body of work, titled ‘Vertical Speed’, opens a new landscape in terms of the artist’s approach to painterly abstraction. The gestural and lyrical brushwork, evident in the piece Marking Mistakes #5 (2014) is no longer visible. The brush has been replaced with a roller, lyrical strokes replaced with uniformity and chance. Using industrial materials such as the roller brush and enamel paint, the artist’s approach to painting is methodical and mechanical. He distances himself emotionally from the painted surface. Started in early 2015, Saiful’s current body of work was initially influenced by his role as a space manager for the Annexe Gallery, in Central Market, Kuala Lumpur in 2008. The gallery was a thriving epicenter for artists and creative practitioners and the dynamic space hosted traditional art exhibitions to punk rock shows and independent film screenings. Saiful’s responsibility was to manage the events and prepare the exhibition space for the succeeding events; he had to make sure the white walls are clean and presentation ready. The artist observed that each event would leave distinctive markings on the wall and he would eventually cover the marks with a roller brush, painting over the surfaces. The artist in the studio applied this technique of painting- over or ‘masking’ in which he painted over his exercise canvases or older using the roller brush as a methodical method to apply paint. He then discovered the possibility of building a painting language based on this exercise. This gesture draws a shift on the artist’s focus from expression to his current paintings exuding an emotional coolness. This approach seems to be in line with the process-led abstraction seen in the international contemporary painting scene and simultaneously unlocks new possibilities of image creation within the local context. Subject matter does not define the images produced and is secondary, and the images are residual of the gestures employed. The artist has stated that the image is the idea and the texture is a procedural residue. Time is an important factor in this body of work. Resonating Bob Nickas’s argument in his book “Painting Abstraction: New Elements in Abstract Painting” (2014) that contemporary abstract paintings form an image of how the world feels; this gesture echoes the quick nature of contemporary reality, quick exchanges of information, rapid dissemination of ideas and even the swiftness of transportation. The artist has stated that the rapid movement of information in the digital age has sparked an immediate urgency in the way he approaches painting. Painting in oil has been traditionally classified as a slow process of image creation; paint require 2 – 3 days to dry and thus a longer waiting and thinking time is required when constructing an image. Switching to enamel paint that dries within a few hours and using a roller brush in which the surface for the application of paint is larger, the artist physically and methodically reiterate this urgency. Approaching painting as though it is an immediate ritual, with little pre-planning and without preparatory sketches, planning comes in the form of intuitive decisions. He decides over colors and direction of the brush while mentally preparing himself for the first strike on the canvas’s surface. This approach to painting relishes the evidence of chance, the slippages from controlled actions that bring forth interesting archipelago of shapes while still retaining control over the holistic composition. Essay by Haffendi Anuar, 2015. Image credit by Nazlishah