HOLHASANUL ISYRAF IDRIS

Chapter 1: The Fall(Higher Order Love)

HOLHASANUL ISYRAF IDRIS

Chapter 1: The Fall

(Higher Order Love)

HOL adalah inskripsi pada serpihan batu marmar lama yang dijumpai di kuburan Yahudi ditengah Georgetown, yang aku kurang pasti apa maksud atau sambungan dari perkataan apa. Berbulan-bulan ia berada distudio aku sebelum aku mula mencari pemaknaan HOL pada Google, jumpaannya adalah Higher Order Logic, teori matematik peringkat tinggi. Bermula dari situ aku mula membuat agakan aku sendiri, menggubah dan menggarap ayat baru dari situ dan tercetus frasa “Higher Order Love”. Maknanya mungkin cinta sepanjang hayat atau cinta tak bertepi.

Segala perkara yang kita kejar dan lakukan sepanjang hidup kadangkala seperti hanya untuk memenuhkan databank dalam minda yang bertukar sebagai memori untuk dihayati. Menikmati rasa makanan di restoran, mempunyai pasangan, melancong dan sebagainya. Segalanya untuk dikenang dan diceritakan berkali-kali sebagai detik penting tanda kewujudan kita diatas bumi ini. Segalanya terakam dan tersimpan, mahu tidak mahu dia tetap ada. Memori menurut bacaanku, sebenarnya bercambah dan tumbuh, ia berevolusi dan bermutasi. Melalui masa dia membesar dan aku bayangkan ia adalah hutan simpan kekal yang aku namakan HOL (Higher Order Love). Kita boleh pergi dan balik mengikut keperluan, ada air terjun kesedihan, tasik benih, rumah ibadat untuk bermunajat, padang kubur, stadium haiwan buas yang penuh dendam atau gua tempat berlindung yang kadang - kadang kita bualkan untuk berkongsi sebagai pengalaman hidup. HOL adalah beberapa fragmen episodic memories hasil hutan minda yang aku bawak untuk dikongsi. “Jatuh” adalah bab pertama dalam HOL, mengenang “Jatuh” boleh dikonotasikan dalam pelbagai rasa, bercampur antara gembira dan sedih. Antara jatuh basikal dan jatuh cinta untuk pertama kali.

Hasanul Isyraf IdrisPulau Pinang

2016

Piece of inscribed marble stone

Jewish cemetery in Georgetown, Penang

Artist Statement

HOL is an inscription on a piece of ancient marble found in a Jewish burial in the middle of Georgetown, Penang; what I am uncertain is the meaning of the word or whether is it part of a longer word. For months, the stone rested in my studio before I Googled HOL and stumbled upon Higher Order Logic, a high-level complex mathematical theory. Using that as a starting point, I begin to make my own assumptions, composing and working on new interpretations until I reached the phrase “Higher Order Love”. HOL’s meaning could either be eternal love or unconditional love.

Throughout the journey of our life, we are constantly running after things and being occupied with things, and it seems that all those things are only to fill a cerebral databank, which subconsciously converts the activities into cherished memories. Dining in a restaurant, having a special partner, holidays and such events. All of those memorable things are to be cherished and told as significant moments that cement our existence on earth. Everything is recorded and stored, without prejudice. Memory, in my opinion, will eventually evolve and mutate. As it develops, I imagine it as a permanent forest reserve, which I titled HOL (Higher Order Love). We can go back and forth to HOL following our needs; there are waterfalls of tears, lakes of seeds, houses of worship, graveyards, a coliseum for wild beasts that are full of rage and anger and a cave for shelter in which we would sometimes sit and share our life experiences. HOL consists of a number of fragmented episodic memories from the wilderness of my mind in which I bring forth to share. “The Fall” is the first chapter of HOL, to remember “The Fall” can be connoted in a variety of flavors, a mix of delight and gloom. Between falling off a bike and falling in love for the first time.

Hasanul’s latest series of works lingers around the idea of falling. For Hasanul, falling can either be a positive or negative thing. The artist reminisce on past memories such as falling off a bike or falling in love while working on this series. These memories are not limited to personal ones but extend to moments in history that somehow imprint Hasanul’s sense of being until today. These include the death themes in Andy Warhol’s work between 1962-64, two of which are titled ‘Suicide’ - Fallen Body (1962) and Purple Jumping Man (1963). Both are the appropriation of suicide images in which one is a fallen body popularly known as ‘the most beautiful suicide’ because of the composed position and visually unbroken body and with legs crossed elegantly. This fall provides an uncanny comparison to Yves Klein’s Leap Into the Void (1960) in which the artist jumps off from a rooftop into the street. The photograph which was shot and edited later was published in broadsheet with a caption that reads ‘’the painter of space hurls himself into the void’’ as a protest to the space race. The work came out 6 months before Yuri Gagarin’s flight into space. The notion of falling and flight find further metonymic movement in Hasanul’s consciousness, into the Falling Man by Richard Drew. Unlike Klein, however, the fate of ‘Falling Man’ in Richard Drew’s journalistic photography was a tragic one. One of the many victims of September 11, ‘Falling Man’ was caught on camera in a vertical dive before he fell to the ground. Although Richard Drew caught about a dozen frames of the fall, one of the poignant images was a graceful fall that touches many.

While the notion of falling mentioned above connotes the tragic ends of human lives, falling also marks the beginning of everything. For a believer, everything began with the epic fall when Satan denounces Adam and refuses to bow down to him that God cast him out from heaven forever. The fallen angel, since then has sworn to persuade human into doing and thinking of bad deeds. As someone who is concerned about spiritual well-being, the religiosity of falling is also at the edge of Hasanul’s thought. He refers to religious figures and deities in his drawings as metaphors or representations of a certain traits or memory. He is conscious of his decision in making the choice as he thinks it is a ‘good’ choice and he is in a phase of discovering religious symbols and knowledge. Religion and its knowledge are becoming fluid to him as he delves into them. For him, everything connected to religion is supposed to be calming and leading towards spiritual cleansing. Hasanul also feels that drawing’s meditative process has helped him to combat depression.

As he struggled with personal challenges when producing Back From Planet Luvox (BFPL), his previous solo show in 2014, Hasanul continued the fight

The Melancholic Moment of Falling

Dr. Tetriana Ahmed Fauzi

against depression with a more elaborate setting and intricate characters through drawing. His drawings have become more visually complex and packed, leaving almost no room for space, and this time leaving Luvox behind. The images of hybrid skeletons from BFPL are replaced by humanoid figures. Slithering snakes and mutated four-legged creatures are among the images that populate the landscapes of his drawings. Albeit the gory nature of the images, especially in Sorry Mak Tattoo and Spa (2015) and Orient Craters on Graveyard (2015), his drawings exude a serene sense of atmosphere, probably because of the decorative elements, patterns and repetitive visual texture quality. In Orient Craters on Graveyard, the tonal detail of the lunar craters, which is actually figures blending in the moon’s topography, is almost as dense as the pointillistic galaxy-like landscape background. Much like the detailed drawing of Louise Despont from her solo exhibition titled Energy Scaffolds and Information Architecture (2016), the meditative quality in her drawing installations resonate with Hasanul’s drawing. Her drawings are mostly symmetrical in composition with repeating patterns on gridded paper. The lines are gentler and hues much softer, making the drawing’s ambience subtler and more serene. According to Claire Voon (2006), Despont’s lines have a gentle way of pulling you into her constructed setting and inviting deep, personal meditation.

Compared to his previous body of work, the current works were not produced entirely from sketches. The images emerge in his mind as he draws them one by one continuously. It was during the drawing process that he ‘summoned’ these images from his memory. He selects, allocates and composes them in the drawings. At the same time, he would drive or take walks to find subjects that would recall and ignite old memories. These processes help him in having a continuous flow of mental images. The nature of drawing as an activity itself helps to activate the flow of images that comes to mind. Since drawing is like second nature to him, it advocates the generation of ideas, or recall past images. Sometimes he feels that certain memory needs to be immortalized in drawing. Other times, it’s the drawing process that recalls a memory, in which drawing a certain image reminds him of a certain memory which leads him to draw more and more.

For Hasanul, there is no grand narrative of memory for each work. Each memory imbued in the drawings is layered and overlaps one another. Certain images may recur a few times to represent certain memories. For example, the elephant which sometimes resembles the Hindu God Ganesha in Sorry Mak Tattoo and Spa, is a memory of circus elephant and also representing his good friend Ganesh. During the time when he was

teaching in Sabah, Ganesh was alienated and treated differently because of his race. It was an incident that he couldn’t forget. Between the forest burning incidents in Sabah to the fantasized story of his brother’s cancer phase, the plots in the drawings unravel. Often the memories of his late mother are the most significant ones projected in his works. In Topographic Retro Dingdang Amnesia (2015), a falling bridge that protrudes from the left side bears the writing MAK as part of it’s construction. The half-broken wooden bridge is also decorated with carvings from his parents’ house in Perak. In the drawing, pieces of everything seem to scatter in slow motions towards all directions. The crumbling landscape of Topographic Retro Dingdang Amnesia portrays MAK’s disintegrated world. The temple on the corner, however, is untouched by the catastrophic tragedy.

Hasanul’s notion of memory is melancholic. It is the past remembered. It exists somewhere in mind that is sometimes recalled and often mentioned. There are good ones and bad ones but those that impact deeply are the traumatising experiences that scar him for life. Hasanul spoke of episodic memory, referring to a person’s unique memory of a specific event. According to Kim Ann Zimmermann (2014), a person’s memory of an event will be different from someone else’s recollection of the same experience. Episodic memories are events that sometimes are deeply ingrained in the mind, due to the emotional baggage it carries. People will normally remember details of the event right down to a particular colour, sound or smell.

“Sorry Mom Tattoo and Spa” is a real name of tattoo parlour he stumbled upon the internet while browsing. The spa in Sorry Mak Tattoo and Spa drawing is filled with gods and deities rejuvenating themselves and getting tattoos done. According to Hasanul, the godly figures in the drawing are in balance with the evil ones as they are portrayed to be symbolically bad and vice versa. For example, in Buddha’s hand is a tattoo of the word Lucy, short for Lucifer. The spa is a reminiscence of Hayao Miyazaki’s bath house for the gods in Spirited Away (2001), where spirits go to the bathhouse to cleanse and refresh themselves. There are a lot of images in Hasanul’s works bearing symbolic significance that represent a certain event or place; Sarasvati and Bali trips, snakes wearing necklaces and his good friend Edison, the lucky symbols that decorated the spa hall with Osaka trip, and lots more. But the shadow of his mother is always present, resonating in several images and symbols in the drawings.

Each symbol represents different memories, like disparate fragments, they are pieced together in a drawing. A specific event experienced by a person will not be the same when shared especially as representations.

Shisa, a guardian lian

Saraswati statue in Pura Ulun Bali

Anish Kapoor’s commissioned piece for the Guggenheim Museum is a large-scale sculpture that can never be fully understood or experienced visually. The sculpture called Memory (2008) is designed in a way that you can’t see the full scale of the work or understand how it was built in the space. From each angle, you can only view some parts of the works. The sculpture begs questions of how it was made, brought in and assembled. Hasanul’s fragmented memories are in parts joined together in drawings similar to Anish Kapoor’s sculpture, a mystery that can never be revealed to the viewer without detailed explanation from the artist himself. According to Sandhini Poder (Anish Kapoor: Memory 2009), curator at the Asian Museum, ‘in a way it is an inaccessibility the fact that the artist is not giving you objects that you can perceived as a whole, it’s really fragmented, it is preventing you getting the experience of the entire piece.’ Although you can see Hasanul’s drawings in totality because of their two-dimensionality, a viewer can never grasp the fragmented memories that each image symbolizes, or fully comprehend the events or experiences of the memories that support them. Nonetheless, this is not a major concern for the artist, for it is not a factor that will stop a viewer from appreciating the works.

Anatomy of Amygdala (2015) is an invented accident scene on a highway. Neon bright, packed with the busy scene of workers extinguishing fire and moving dead creatures hint at a linear narrative rather than a mixture of images and representations. One also finds characters which resemble a forensic team or scientists in a middle of an investigation. Somewhere in the middle of the scene, amongst the landscape is a holy tree, complete with holy men in meditation. The final piece of the large scale drawing is called Shanti Pavilion (2016), an apocalyptic scene of falling dark figures in a coliseum with a courtyard in the bottom part of the drawing. The space is marked with graffiti and we can see a shamanic figure in green and more workers in uniforms. The figure in green seems to be the head of a clean up operation down at the courtyard. All around the coliseum are more figures, spirits and deities with tattoos inscribing names of good and evil in one place, falling, destroyed, rising and standing.

Down the rabbit hole is where Alice fell in what seems like a long fall that never ended in a dream, to find herself in Wonderland with idiosyncratic and amusing characters. Much like Hasanul’s drawing, we would find ourselves musing over the many characters that fill the drawings. Each piece of Hasanul’s large scale drawing is unique. There is no exactly similar visual composition or formula. It is hard to categorize them as a series, but what unify them are the densely populated images,

decorative textural details and fantastic juxtaposition of images in an ambiguous perspective vision. They are echoes of his thoughts, of memories revisited and dissected. It is melancholic and emotionally intense. The emotional attachment it carries is overwhelming but not heart wrenching, like when your chest is choked from within.

Note

Part of the exhibition also includes small drawings which are done during a Rimbun Dahan residency in 2015. These drawings are inspired by the ‘little forest’ that surrounds him. The time spent in Rimbun Dahan allowed him to contemplate on his creative practice and be closer to nature. There he recorded gamelan music, sounds of nature at night and casting wild boars footprint with plaster of Paris. It also permits him to experiment with materials and find possibilities in creating new artworks.

Bibliography

Anish Kapoor: Memory, video, Guggenheim.org, 2009, viewed 26 February 2016, <http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/exhibitions/past/exhibit/3317>

Block, A. (2016) ‘Louise Despont Site-Specific Structures Fill NY’s Drawing Center’. Interior Design [Online] Available at: http://www.interiordesign.net/articles/11558-louise-despont-site-specific-structures-fill-ny-s-drawing-center/ (Accessed: 27 February 2016)

Carter, A.L. (1923) ‘Falling as a Theme in Literature’. Modern Language Notes, Vol. 38, No. 6 (Jun., 1923), pp. 340-343 [Online] Available at : http://www.jstor.org/stable/2915183 (Accessed: 27 February 2016)

Cosgrove, B. (2014) ‘The Most Beautiful Suicide: A Violent Death, an Immortal Photo’. Time [Online] Available at: http://time.com/3456028/the-most-beautiful-suicide-a-violent-death-an-immortal-photo/(Accessed 25 February 2016)

Levin, K. (2010) ‘Yves Klein’s Leap Year’. Artnews [Online] Available at: http://www.artnews.com/2010/03/01/yves-kleins-leap-year/ (Accessed: 27 February 2016)

Pompeo, J. (2011) ‘Falling Man Retraces Steps Recalling Unknown Soldier’. Yahoo News, [Online] Available at http://news.yahoo.com/photographer-behind-9-11-falling-man-retraces-steps-recalls-unknown-soldier.html (Accessed: 27 February 2016)

Voon, C. (2016) ‘Drawing the Invisible Shapes of Energy’. Hyperallergic.com, (March, 2016) [Online] Available at : http://hyperallergic.com/277119/drawing-the-invisible-shapes-of-energy/ (Accessed: 27 February 2016)

Zimmermann, K.A. (2014) Episodic Memory: Definition and Examples. Live Science (February, 2014) [Online] Available at: http://www.livescience.com/43682-episodic-memory.html (Accessed: 27 February 2016)

Elephant motive in batik

Buddha and Jesus in Japanese comic

Artworks

Topographic Retro Dingdang2015Felt, ink, watercolour, pencil and glitter on paper153 x 153 cm

Anatomy of Amygdala2015Sticker, ink, watercolor, graphite and pencil on paper153 x 182 cm

Orient Craters on Graveyard2015Ink and glitter on paper153 x 153 cm

Sorry Mak Tattoo and Spa2015Sticker, ink, pencil and watercolor on paper153 x 153 cm

Shanti Pavilion2016Ink, pencil, graphite and color pencil on paper153 x 182 cm

Sumsorry2015Pencil, ink and watercolor on paper21 x 29.5 cm

Santan and Batgod2015Pencil, ink and watercolor on paper21 x 29.5 cm

Santan and the Acid Party Band2015Ink and watercolor on paper21 x 29.5 cm

Sadhu Kingfisher2015Watercolour, ink and graphite on paper21 x 29.5 cm

Facing Mantra2015Ink on paper29.5 x 21 cm

Rainmoon2015Ink on paper29.5 x 21 cm

Dancing Dengue2015Ink on paper29.5 x 21 cm

Pool2015Ink on paper29.5 x 21 cm

Hawaii 5.02016Scratch paper29 x 20 cm

Mempening2015Ink on paper21 x 29.5 cm

Bhakti Angel2015Scratch paper29 x 20 cm

Perfect Mandala2015Scratch paper29 x 20 cm

Prana Teardrop2015Scratch paper29 x 20 cm

X32015Scratch paper20 x 29 cm

Cabinet2015Scratch paper19 x 27.5 cm

Fender Dating Finger Strumming2015Scratch paper19.5 x 27.5 cm

Education Bachelor in Fine Art, Mara University of Technology UiTM, Perak, Malaysia

Solo Exhibitions2016 HOL Chapter 1: The Fall, Richard Koh Fine, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

2014 Back from Planet Luvox, Richard Koh Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

2011 Clash of the Pigments, Richard Koh Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Group Exhibitions

2015 Malaysian Art, A New Perspective, Richard Koh Fine Art, Singapore Malaysian Art, A New Perspective, Richard Koh Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Open Gate - Asian Sounds Research, with Japan Foundation, Hin Bus Depot, Georgetown, Malaysia

2014 KIAF/14, Seoul, Korea Malaysian Eye, White Box, Publika,

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

MEAA (Malaysian Emerging Artists Awards) Finalist Exhibition, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Arts Kuala Lumpur - Melbourne 2014, Space @ Collins, Melbourne

2013 YOUNG MALAYSIAN ARTISTS: NEW OBJECT(ION) II (YMA II), Petronas Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 2011 Art Expo Malaysia 2011, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 2010 Ringan-ringan, Map White Box, Publika, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia January Showcase, Chandan Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 2009 International Contemporary Art Show (Imcas), Danga Bay, Johor Bahru, Malaysia Our Hearts For Yours, Chandan Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 18@8, Weiling Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

2008 Semangat Chandan : Contemporary Artist From The Land Of Grace, Chandan Gallery,

Hasanul Isyraf Idris (b. 1978, Malaysia) was trained at Mara University of Technology, UiTM, in Perak. He has received a number of awards, including the Young Contemporary Arts Award in 2007 at the National Visual Arts Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, the Incentive Award at the Open Show held at the Shah Alam Gallery and the Consolation Prize for the Young Talent Art Exhibition at the Penang Art Gallery. A highly elusive artist, Hasanul shuns attending openings and attempts to work anonymously in the art scene.

Hasanul Isyraf Idris produces works in a variety of media, from paintings and meticulously crafted drawings to painted oven-baked clay sculptures. Mining inspiration from within, he articulates his personal struggles as an artist by personifying them as strange characters that inhabit his invented universes. Influenced by the graphics of underground comic books, 1960s science fiction, fast food, and street art and fashion, he juggles pop -culture references with a personal viewpoint. Recurring topics in his practice are the meaning of life and death, memories and fantasies and sin and reward.

Hasanul Isyraf Idris

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 2007 Young Contemporary Art Exhibition, National Visual Arts Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Three New Voices, Wei Ling Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 2006 Pameran Titian Budaya Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam

Open Show, National Visual Arts Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Tribute To Jeri Azahari, National Visual Arts Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

2005 Miniature Show, Maya Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

AID For Tsunami Relief, National Visual Arts Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Below 1000, Gema Rimba Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 2004 Young Contemporary Art Exhibition, National Visual Arts Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

The Junction, Pelita Hati Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

1999 Open Show, Shah Alam Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Young Talent Art Exhibition, Penang Fest, Penang Art Gallery, Malaysia

1998 Julung, Melaka Museum, Malaysia

Senirupa, Darul Ridzuan Museum, Perak, Malaysia

Residencies2015 South East Asian Art Residency, Rimbun Dahan,

Kuang, Malaysia

Awards & Activities2007 Young Contemporary Arts Award, National Visual

Arts Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

1999 Incentive Award, Open Show, Shah Alam Gallery, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia

Consolation Prize, Young Talent Art Exhibition, Penang Art Gallery, Penang, Malaysia

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Richard Koh Fine Art has been in operation since 2005 and is regarded as a pioneer for introducing Southeast Asian contemporary art to Malaysia and the region. Promoting an adventurous roster of emerging and established Southeast Asian artists, the gallery regularly mounts exhibitions locally and abroad with a commitment to emerging practices and challenging media.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication 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 artist and gallery.

Publication © 2016 Richard Koh Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur

Artwork and Images © 2016 Hasanul Isyraf Idris Essay - Dr. Tetriana Ahmed FauziTranslation of artist statement - Haffendi Anuar

This catalog is published to accompany asolo exhibition by Hasanul Isyraf Idris titled, HOL (Higher Order Love), Chapter 1: The Fall at Richard Koh Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur from 9 to 23 April 2016.

RICHARD KOH FINE ART