Klang Valley Streets: Big horizons and hot afternoon colours
JAMES HIPKISS visits Rafiee Ghani’s exhibition of exuberant paintings.
HUES: Nightwatcher.
BRIGHT: The Sakura Beach.
WELL, that is the feeling that I got, the emotions evoked within me, by the paintings of Rafiee Ghani at his latest one-man exhibition, which had its official opening with guest of honour Datuk Syed Ahmad Jamal, National Laureate, at Artcase Galleries, Great Eastern Mall, Kuala Lumpur on Sept 8.
The first thing which struck me upon viewing the pictures at Rafiee’s Artcase Galleries show titled Storm Boy was the bold colours, hot colours, tropical colours, perhaps I could even say Malaysian colours, or Kelantan colours (his home State), and obviously, a source of some of his inspiration. On speaking with Rafiee one quickly gains the impression that the things that influence his paintings in this exhibition at least, are those which are physically close to him.
He was raised in Kelantan though he now lives in Puncak Alam Selangor with his family, and this is where his studio is.Rafiee began formally studying art in Holland in 1980, continuing his studies at MARA, Shah Alam, and then spending two years in Manchester, the United Kingdom gaining his Master of Fine Arts in 1987. His first accolade was an award from the National Art Gallery Kuala Lumpur in 1984, and he has been mounting solo exhibitions since 1993.
His style evolves continuously; a while back he went through an abstract period, but now with his new show he has excited his followers and viewers in general with his figure studies and big open horizons. As I mentioned, his inspirations seem to come from his environment. The sense of space, the outdoors, the big horizons in his pictures hark back to Kelantan, which he misses and still visits. He finds urban views to perhaps be constricting, unlike the open vistas of sea, sky and beaches. The figures too, which he has now started painting, are close to home, in fact his own children, depicted with the feeling and natural intimacy that only a parent artist can achieve.
His son on a limitless beach gazing into a limitless sky in the picture Nightwatcher (shades of Rembrandt in that title?); his daughter an onlooker upon a backyard still life in The Shadow Rider. Shadows are actually an element he frequently uses, often long shadows evoking a late afternoon, or evening atmosphere. He obviously enjoys working with the shadows cast by his children’s bicycles; the bicycles and their complex shadows appearing more than once in his scenes.
Asking him about this, he said that bicycles both reminded him of his own childhood and represented, at another level, a “moving on motif”.The moving on or transition is clearly important to Rafiee in different senses. His figures are so often looking outward and upward, stressing this, and some of his pictures give the viewer a sense of looking from indoors to the open air. His transition in style — moving onto figure painting, though with abstract elements sometimes evident — and the transition of materials he is working with — back to oil colours and canvas after experimenting with paper, collages and other forms and materials — the artist seems to be intent on always moving onward, or at least in a state of change.
Other elements which appear in his current paintings are the umbrella or parasol, which he mentions as giving a Far Eastern notation to the scenes. Drinking vessels, cups and glasses often appear in an image, which for me further stress the “hot afternoon” atmosphere.Looking at the more technical side of his work, one is struck by the strength of the composition on many of the paintings, landscapes/seascapes, particularly, have a very pleasing natural balance and the proportions work perfectly.
The artist’s return to the use of oil colours on canvas has enabled him to use the translucency of oils, working so that the hues of a lower layer of paint can be visible through a thinner upper layer. So although he works with large areas often in one colour, that colour is not actually solid, but in places a second colour beneath registers its presence, adding a depth and complexity. In other instances, Rafiee uses physical density of oil colours, so giving texture, with thick brush strokes and generous amounts of paint.
Clearly evident too is his love of warm tones, shades of red and yellow abound, adding to a feeling of heat created by the hard shadows cast by the sun. To me, this combined with the harshness and brightness of his colour choices, reinforces the tropical feel of his scenes.These effects bear a similarity to the methods used by Paul Gauguin to bestow a tropical feeling upon many of his Tahitian images.
Though perhaps one should not try to “pigeonhole” artists, Rafiee’s works at Artcase Galleries do have a certain French Impressionist flavour to them.No, go and see them for yourself, you will not regret your visit to Artcase Galleries at Great Eastern Mall, Jalan Ampang KL, and if you really like the look of his pictures here, you had better hurry, they are selling fast, at prices from around RM7,000 to RM18,000.Stand before his Nightwatcher or Storm Boy, for instance, and you will be sorely tempted, should you have the funds available.
The show runs for three weeks from the official Sept 8 opening. Artcase Galleries can be contacted on 03-4257-4007 for further details.
# sentiasa dilindungi ALLAH TAALA , semoga dimurahkan rezeki , diberikan isteri-isteri yang baik , kesihatan yang baik dan sihatceriacergas selalu . semoga ALLAH TAALA mempermudahkan hajat di hati , insyaallah..amin.
# KUMPULAN MADU3 BERBANGGA BERURUSNIAGA DAN MENJALINKAN PERSAHABATAN DENGAN SAUDARA RAFIE GHANIE , SEMOGA MURAH REZEKI DAN TERCAPAI CITA-CITA " MEMETIK BUNGA DITAMAN YANG KE 2 " .....INSYAALLAH ...( DOA KAWAN-KAWAN ) heheheheheheherefer : http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Friday/Features/20070913143716/Article/index_html
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