GLOBAL / LOCAL: THE ART OF SAMSUDIN

“Political art works best when it changes the people encountering it so that…people find ways of negotiating and collaborating to change the world within them, around them and between them.”

 – Ross Gibson, APT5 (2006) 

What writer Ross Gibson doesn’t say is that the contemporary art ‘style’ used in delivering politically conscious art works varies greatly from artist to artist and that its success lies in its ability to connect visually with a multiple of audiences. In other words, contemporary narratives need to have a place outside the fundamental cavern of activism if they are to truly communicate. In the Malaysian context, that ‘change’ Gibson describes has a duality that speaks equally about contemporary Malaysian art finding its voice within the international market as it does in a shifting social-political landscape. Samsudin Abdul Wahab’s (b.1984) paintings intuitively bridge that local / global dialogue.

Graduating in 2007, Samsudin is part of a generation of artists across Southeast Asia I refer to as Neo-SR; artists who have stepped beyond the devices of guilt and activism favoured by their Social Realist predecessors of the 1970-90s. These painting of Samsudin’s, rather, pick up on a different commonality: a collective awareness informed by the internet, a profusion of international magazines, of a comic sub-culture and its fusion with indie industries, desktop graphics and graffiti. Samsudin’s works sit comfortably across these differing perspectives, layering media icons and blending materials with great dexterity: linocuts, oil paint, bitumen and stencilling are used with a casual ease. His paintings have an aesthetic clarity and maturity beyond his years.

This suite of fifteen works was painted between two key events in Malaysian contemporary history, last year’s celebration of 50 years of Independence and the 2008 General Election and its aftermath. Samsudin effectively gives us a satirical play in fifteen acts and as bookend events they can be summarised in the paintings “Di Luar Tempurung” (2008) and “The Patriot” (2008). 

Painted a month before Merdeka, Tempurung uses the Malay proverb “Bagai Katak Bawah Tempurung”, translated ‘like a frog under a coconut shell’ and refers to an ignorance or blindness of a person to what surrounds them. It is a simple image but a deeply layered metaphor. Doubly, for this writer, the puppet-like gesture of the frog is reminiscent of the showman Kermit of the 1980s television program “The Muppets” and speaks to puppet-politics in the gleam of stage lights – it’s a global comedy. This reference to puppet governments is further underlined by Samsudin’s pairing of less obvious symbols, a bird cage and a Samurai, images that speak about Malaysia’s colonial past under British and Japanese occupation. Samsudin uses the lightness of comic graphics to mask the intelligence of this work.

Take the simple pairing of the words ‘digital Malaya’ in a comic-style text-bubble. Digital is a term that refers to a new age while Malaya evokes the past. These words appear to rise out of the slogan “Merdeka” in the painting. Just as Merdeka defined a newly independent nation, digital describes Malaysia’s future and both have the rhetoric of boleh. These paintings have the punch of now.

The painting titled “The Patriot” similarly uses metaphor and symbolism to probe thought. Samsudin pairs words to reveal a disparity, here ‘Democracy’ and ‘fantasy’ are touted alongside the caricatures of political opponents. They are aggressive characters that appear at odds within their celestial environment of halos and heavens, a traditional seat of power. Language continues to play an important role for Samsudin. The word ‘Patriot’ is very charged. It describes a person who proudly defends his/her country and its way of life. It is deliberate choice in the light of the Merdeka anniversary, recent elections and its linguistic overtone as an Americanism. That notion of fighting for something one believes in equally speaks of human desire and the fine line between misdirected vision and the pursuit of greatness. It is a complex idea that has a local/global resonance in our world today. Reading these paintings we are left with the question, is it a parody or tragedy that Samsudin describes through their theatrics?

Take as example “Powerless” (2008) where Samsudin pairs the costume of a clown’s frilled collar with charged text. Government officials are portrayed as monkeys, the mischief-makers in Asian mythology and their act of juggling foremost evoke a circus act. It is banal entertainment for a captivated audience and an international description for politicians everywhere. Juggling, here, speaks of the balancing act for power and the shuffling of blame and responsibility. This is a dark painting and Samsudin’s use of dramatic lighting and dribbled paint evoke a sense of decay.

Each of these paintings has a story; I have touched on but a few. They move beyond locality to global debates, such as “Goddess of Justice” (2008) that discusses a resolution between Israel and Palestine moderated by Condaleeza Rice or “The Master” (2008), a parody of the Malaysian art scene and its defining within the burgeoning Asian market. Overall we are taken on a fantastical journey through the paintings of Samsudin. We read them like a book, hungry for the next page. They weave together symbols and characters that tell a local story but nevertheless remain allusive enough to be translated to global stereotypes: the politician, the art dealer, the patriot. This is their success. The viewer becomes an active participant in their translation. They slide between experience, vernacular and place. They have that youthful exuberance of the new and yet they have proven their mettle in pushing the boundaries of their chosen genre and move beyond the status quo. Samsudin’s solo is a cohesive and probing exhibition that heralds an exciting future.

- Gina Fairley

Artist Statement

I dedicated part of my artistic output to a pictorial description of the society in which I’m lived. I encourage my viewers to examine carefully what lies hidden behind the ostensible world we live in. I’m using lots of satirical images such as animal head, puppets, unidentified weird monsters and surreal human figures just to present my expression of the unstable political situation that happened here in Malaysia and all over the world.

 It is more effective for me to work with printmaking to present my artwork because it’s light pictorial medium for my audience to think and understand what the critical idea is that I’m talking about. Goya, William Hogarth, James Gillray, Honoré Daumier, Käthe Kollwitz and Robert Motherwell are just a few of the many artists who turned to printmaking to protest social injustice. In these series of works I avoided the use of colour. By doing so they became an ideal medium for giving a simple, vibrant vision of reality. They also allowed the artist to create a darker, caricatured view of life.

-Samsudin Abdul Wahab a.k.a Buden