SENI COLLECTIVE
"Celebrate
Individuality. Harvest Diversity"
SENI COLLECTIVE is a group of established and emerging
artists founded by Ashly Nandong and Amelie Blanc in 2011. The SENI COLLECTIVE network of artists includes individuals
from Australia, Brunei, France, Japan and Malaysia.
The main mission of the collective is to provide venues for the
artists to promote their works and to promote an appreciation of art to the
society where ever it may be exhibiting, as well as to promote cultural
diversity of its artist.
This partnership with Warisan Sarawak during the Borneo Festival 2012 will present a unique opportunity for the public to view a very diverse array of artists and their artworks, exhibiting at the Malaysia Tourism Centre, Jalan Ampang Kuala Lumpur. And we believe this collaboration will enhance further the reputation of both Warisan Sarawak and SENI COLLECTIVE.
This partnership with Warisan Sarawak during the Borneo Festival 2012 will present a unique opportunity for the public to view a very diverse array of artists and their artworks, exhibiting at the Malaysia Tourism Centre, Jalan Ampang Kuala Lumpur. And we believe this collaboration will enhance further the reputation of both Warisan Sarawak and SENI COLLECTIVE.
The
Collective’s Artists:
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Ali Akbar
Othman
Art genre: Naïve Art
Painter
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas
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Artist overview:
Born in July
1956 in Merlimau Melaka, AliAkbar always aspired to live a life of a full time
artist. This led him into a period of exploration and after completing his
secondary level of education he joined an Anti-Drug
Campaign poster design in Dungun, Terengganu and was awarded first prize
for best design. This lead him to undertake a Diploma in Art & Design
(Graphic Design) ITM, Shah Alah from 1977 to 1979, during which period he has
continually won mulitple graphic design awards such as main prize for the Majlis Agama Islam Wilayah Persekutuan logo
design contest (1977), the runner-up for the HLR Insurance logo design contest (1979), first prize for the Kelab Dagang logo design competition
(1981).
It was only in
2005, Ali Akbar was finally able to realise his life-long dream to be an
established full-time artist, and embarked on a journey of this new career,
participating in collective collaborations in multiple exhibitions all over
Malaysia until today. However, it was
only in 2008 that Ali Akbar artistic niche of the ‘dot mix naive’ style paintings were given recognition and he was
acknowledged as the pioneer in Malaysian arts in such genre of contemporary
arts at his solo exhibition entitled Lanskap
Malaya in New Straits Time Post Building, Kuala Lumpur (2008).
Ali Akbar is a
resident artist of the Conlay Artist
Colony and rents a studio at the National Craft Complex in Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia since 2008 to current.
Some of Ali's work.
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Ashly Nandong
Art genre:
Contemporary Ethnic Motifs
Medium: Acrylic and ink on canvas,
mix media, murals and skateboards
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Artist overview:
Ashly Nandong is an emerging Malaysian artist, who
studies the Borneo traditional ’Sapeh’
lute music, and the traditional Dayak
dance of the Orang Ulu people group
of Sarawak) and is a contemporary painter artist. His original background of
studies was a Bachelor’s of Mechatronics and Robotics Engineering from
Swinburne University, Victoria, Australia. He continually pursues his dream to
be an established artist and passionately endeavours in his artistic interest
as a freelance artist.
Projects in the
arts that Ashly have successfully accomplished are such as world music fusion
with the Melodius Operandi ensemble
which he founded in 2007 (a multicultural world music ensemble based in
Melbourne VIC Australia; 2007 - 2010), informally-studied and performed
traditional compositions of the Borneo ‘Sapeh’
lute music under the tutelage of Mr Ukung Mering (1999 – 2005: Kuching,
Sarawak, Malaysia) and Mr Philip Ngau Jalong (2010: Melbourne, Victoria,
Australia), has also attended practices and informally studied West Javanese “Chirebon” Gamelan music with Putra Panji Asmara ensemble under
ensemble director Micheal Ewing (2010: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) as well
as self-organised and curated visual art exhibitions (Pas De Compromis – A reflection of the soul) collective art
exhibition in Melbourne, VIC Australia; 2007 and Saturn Return – A premier
solo art exhibition by Ashly Nandong in Kuching, Sarawak; 2011 ) and have
participated in numerous visual art exhibitions in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah as part
of the Cracko Art Group; 2011. He is
also the co-founder and joint-coordinator alongside David Sweeting and Anna Chinnary
of a Not-For-Profit advocacy through visual arts group based in Melbourne
called Tumbuna Art Project; 2009 -
2010, which launched its premier
visual arts exhibition entitled “Time Mi
Lukim” in March 2010, showcasing works of art by native artists from Papua
New Guinea in Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
Ashly is
currently working with Amelie Blanc in their latest collective art exhibition
tour “SENI COLLECTIVE (Celebrate Individuality, Harvest
Diversity)”, which will showcase a variety of artists, locally and internationally,
from a diverse range of visual arts genre in Kuala Lumpur and Penang for its
2012 programme.
Some of Ashly's work
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Cracko @ Crig Roynno
Francis
Art genre:
Intuitive
doodling, street art, abstract, and contemporary, pop art
Medium:
Oil on
Canvas, acrylic on canvas and walls, mix media, carbon and charcoal, etc etc.
Website: http://artcracko.blogspot.com/
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Artist overview:
Cracko,
graduated in Graphic Design from the Kinabalu
Commercial College and is now striving to make it in the Sabah scene as a
full time painter artist and freelance graphic designer. In 2001, he published
a magazine about the arts and distributed it to the local underground youth movements
in hope that it will nurture a sense of progress within the local arts scene.
Only after 10 years of such sporadic attempts, Cracko Art Group was formed.
Cracko is the leading founder of Cracko Art Group, an art movement based
in KK, Sabah. He found his inspiration from an encounter with renowned
Malaysian contemporary artist Donald Abraham a.k.a Yak Yak in 2008. Straight
after, in the same year, Cracko joint ventured
with Anddy Romeo Dulait forming ARTPreciate.. an arts movement with a purpose
strictly on doing charity and educating the local on different
style/genre/topic in the arts. In 2010, ten local emerging Sabah artists join a
collaboration project and he found out that most of these artists have
their own copies of Crackozine issue
from his 2001 endeavour. Hence they decided to form
Cracko Art Group.
Currently, Cracko Art Group has 19 member artists,
is a well-established artist collective in KK, Sabah and is still growing in
numbers.
Some of Cracko's work
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Jon Bagul
(Abdul Latif Magit)
Art genre: Floral and
Motif Batik Fine Arts
Medium: Fabric Dye,
Tjanting on Silk and Cotton
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Artist overview:
Born to the
tribe of the ‘Bajau’ Horseman from
Kota Belud, Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, Jon Bagul has always been a naturally
talented and aspiring artist. He kick-started his artist journey by producing
T-shirt prints while still in high school back in Kota Belud and was renowned
for his creativity. However, Jon started his career path working in the banking
industry before progressing into his desired profession as a batik fine artist.
Jon only took this leap of faith to be an artist when the Sabah government
drove to re-educate Malaysians on native craft, especially in a time when batik
was becoming a dying art in the early 1990s.
Jon learnt the beginnings
of his craft of batik tjanting at Yayasan
Sabah in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah (1995) under a trainer who was sent by the
Handicraft Development Cooperation. Later he pursued a year of business in Kota
Belud, creating paintings and decorative work while horning his batik skills;
circa 1995-1996, when he founded the JonBagul Studio. Soon after, he felt the need to advance
further his natural talent and entered a three year course with the National
Crafts Institute, hence left Sabah for Kuala Lumpur from 1997 to 1999. He
graduated with a Malaysian Vocational Training Council Certificate and
immediately found a job in Kuala Lumpur with a Korean based batik making
company in 2000.
Eventually, Jon
left the company in 2002 and ventured as a sole business trader selling his
very own creations of batik fine arts, operating under the name “Embokoyoh Batik”, in honour of his great
grandfather. Since the establishment of
his own business, Jon rents a studio at the National Craft Complex in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia until the
present day and works on commission for clients locally and overseas mostly.
Some of Jon's work.
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Steven
Lejeune
Art genre:
Japanese
Manga, French-Belgium and American Comic novel writing
Medium: Ink on paper, mural, wood and computer illustration
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Artist overview:
Steven Lejeune
is a French Polynesian graphic novel artist currently leaving in Kuching,
Sarawak. Aside from his 10 years experience in the comics industry, he used the
fact that drawing can be done anywhere so he could travel around and gets to
live and learn other cultures and mindsets.
Steven Lejeune
has worked with other French comic book writers, such as Jean-David Morvan. He
is most well-known for his work on the comic book series TDB, or Trop
de Bonheur (which loosely translates to "Too Much Happiness").
The series, which takes place in a future France, was first started in 2002 and
is published by Delcourt Publishing.
Before this, he has collaborated in the production of earlier Heroes comic books as
a graphic novel illustrator.
.
This exhibition
project turns out to be his first chance to come up with the production of
decorative pieces of art (as opposed to his usual comic pages where only the
reproduction rights are sold).
Some of Steven's work
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Yuma Hyodo
Art genre: Tradition Japanese Motifs and Traditional
Amerindians Motifs
Medium: Embossment,
Burn-treatment and Acrylic on Skateboards
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Artist overview:
Yuma Hyodo was
born on the 2nd of September, 1982 in a small village near Ehime, Shikoku
Island, Japan. He spent his entire childhood there, surrounded by nature,
before moving to Tokyo in 2000.
At the age of
7, his brother introduced him to skateboarding, a passion that Yuma would never
let go of. He travels constantly with his board, ready to ride and
discover. And it was with that attitude,
and his love for skateboarding, that he journeyed to the U.S.A. in 2002,
cruising with his skateboard through the street cultures of New York and then
onto San Francisco. Once back in Japan, he began thinking about how to use the
skateboard as an E Medium for Art.
As the
skateboard/wood board had never been used as a canvas, Yuma imagined what
technical skills and designs could be used, and eventually started carving,
burning and painting, and colouring skateboards in 2004. But it was only in
2007, three years later, that he began to showcase his art to others,
holding exhibitions and opening his own shop and brand, Medicine Wheel Movement, in various venues.
Yuma’s art and
lifestyle is strongly connected and influenced by Amerindian Shamanism and more specifically, the Medicine Wheel. In Native American
spirituality, the Medicine Wheel represents 'harmony' and 'connections', and is
considered a major symbol of peaceful interactions among all living beings on
Earth. “Sun, Moon, Stars, Ocean, Earth, Plants, Animals, You and Me are
spiritually and physically connected, anytime and anywhere”, says Yuma.
“Everything is Oneness.”According to him, this phenomenon is present in each
action throughout the day, from feeding, to walking in a forest, or skating on
the paved streets of Tokyo. In his art, he expresses Nature, The Universe and
Mind, through traditional Japanese patterns, geometrical patterns and also Mandalas. And while constantly
questioning himself, Yuma wishes to question the minds of others, about what,
in a subdividing and rationalizing society, is of primary importance to human
beings.
Some of Yuma's work
