Memory Lane of my Art Journey- Art Academy Years

Initially, the Fine Art programme was not part of my plan. Nevertheless, under the admiration and influence of a famous literature Picture of Dorian Gray, I dreamt of painting a lovely and magical portrait as Basil does, an enchanting portrait that traps one’s soul… that’s where I made my decision on being a Fine Art major. Never did I regret.

The first few semesters are basic drawing and designing skill classes. Moving onto the exciting oil painting class, we started off with painting fruits, landscape then figures. In our last years, we have a portfolio project of around 5 months duration (after deducting holiday). The project separates into two part: Portfolio 1 and Portfolio 2. Literally it is producing a project of minimum 3 pieces of artwork in one semester. In total that makes it 6 works. Since it is only a diploma programme, the focus of the study is on the skills and maybe 30% on thinking. It is considered stressful for a lot student and they have cried during/ after their exams. I do not fully understand what was that about when I went to see my senior present their works. But soon afterward I do realize it is not easy to finish a project when I do not have any idea what researching is. All I know is to search for similar artworks and read related articles.

My class had different lecturers for Portfolio 1 and Portfolio 2. The lecturer we have for Portfolio 1 was an elegant, brave-speaking woman. In our Fine Art Department, we rarely have ANY female lecturer, which makes me wonder sometimes.

This lady is Minstrel Kuik. From what I remember she is a photography major, do painting and drawing now and then, and was studying and living overseas for quite a long time. She has some temper, but very outspoken with her ideas, this has given a very deep impression of her existence. Under her teaching, I made myself step up in creating paintings with the help of photography. Using photographs to help in creating artworks is nothing new. However for me at that stage, it is a new baby step. With that being said, I try whatever I could to create images I imagined in my mind. Fortunate enough, the school’s Fine Art community has a lot of kind people, no fees were needed to ask them to model for me.  

SO! After all the rambles… I finished my first project that is based off fairy tales story because I love reading fantasy and imaginative stories… but during the assessment, one of the lecturers comment that my works shows a feminism theme (all the character in my paintings are female) and asked what and where I wanted to lead this to in the upcoming semester aka Portfolio 2. Still being rather innocent-minded, I wasn’t prepared for some SERIOUS themed works, the word “Feminism” was something too big for me to swallow and digest, and I had the least idea what I want to do with it. Moving onto Portfolio 2, my class is undertaken by a lecturer who just came back from UK, from what I learn he has resided in the UK for a few decades. Introducing- Andrew (Chong Boon Pok). Andrew and Kuik’s thoughts in the creation of artworks are different apparently; Andrew’s works are focused on the concept of Zen while Kuik’s concept…I have no idea.

But from what I know (from my personal view ** I don’t mean to offend anyone or if the lecturer sees this lol)) She sometimes works with politically related issue, on the other hand, she captures the little things in life in a simplicity perspective especially her photographs, this includes exploring the general behaviour, emotions and the seeking of identity of the human itself. Also, being a female artist of her generation (which they're not a lot) She also creates works that bring up the discussion of female status in the society. AGAIN, these are purely my perspective on what her works are about. I may be wrong in some way.

Andrew’s art practice is of various fields, from sculptures, installations, community works etc. Compare to Kuik, Andrew is a very chill person, so I let my imagination and boundaries went wild. Instead of just only making oil paintings and making a goal like at least 3 paintings are needed (which is not the best idea although I can see why they want to set a bar as such), my practice is heading towards an experimenting direction. I cooperate line art drawings, and somehow, I find a new interest in collage works. I love cutting patterns from magazines and therefore I try to create something of out them. Honestly, it is not easy seeing myself producing experimental works while seeing others create works that are considered complete at a certain level. But I guess such feelings probably comes from the thought of comparing one to another.

I understand that art varies for everyone, but sometimes you know, there is this feeling where you thought: how great if my works are as comparable to him/her. Maybe I will talk about my concern about this topic on this later.

Last but not least, I did enjoy my Portfolio 2’s works throughout. By having experimenting as my project core I should probably expect that the outcomes may not be as great or mind-blowing from the perspective of general view. It is nothing too crucial or heartbroken because if one is really passionate about their works I believe that self-confidence is the most important factor to keep one going.

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Link to my portfolio works 
sketches done during Portfolio 2

Memory lane of my Art Journey- High School Years

My interest in art started from the influence of watching anime in an Astro Channel called AxN. I have also watched Fruit Basket from a normal TV channel that speaks in Malay, I love the opening and closing song so much that I have a recording tape that I records the music onto the cassette (yes, my child hood grew up that way, CDs only became something when I was around 10). I remember lusting over Card Captor Sakura Animation CDs when I was in high school. They were something considered SUPER POPULAR back in those days.

With that in mind I started drawing a lot of manga characters, this also includes cult classic like Digimon and Pokemon. Not to mention, these classics have many versions which of course, I do consider myself outdated and no longer gives any attention of their further releases aside from first to the second season.

Moving on to high school, I joined the Manga Society. We have classes weekly and learn the basics of manga drawing. This includes figure proportion, styling, as well as techniques and all that jazz to make a manga. Little would I have thought, I stayed in the group for straight 5 years and became the Vice President during my senior years. Back then, drawing comic is everything to me. I could stay up all night to draw comic, as well as prepare for competitions. Fortunate enough, my hard works did pay off, and in honor I received first place awards twice in some competition. Aside from that, I am glad that my parents are very supportive of my interest. (but of course they do constantly make sure I am not doing any porn-y stuff) (but I did some anyway- it’s just that it’s less erotic)

In my high school years, I’m not a smart student on most subjects and I would spend time drawing on textbooks, exam papers etc. Me and my close friends used to dream of becoming a great mangaka one day. Which unfortunately we have gone our separate ways. Well, I mean I do still dream of becoming a mangaka one of these days if things that need to settle in reality were gone. If did not settle down by being a painter/ fine art artist, being an illustrator is pretty cool too.

When I was a 5^th grade, there are two well-known art academies in the city where I live-Dasein Academy of Art and The One Academy (aka TOA). At that time, TOA has a higher reputation than Dasein and discussions of which school to choose can be found on forums. While both academies do provide Illustration majoring course, Fine Art course was not available in TOA’s programme during that period. Secondly, TOA’s tuition fee is double of Dasein’s. To made up my mind, I joined a competition for soon-graduate high-schoolers organize by TOA, the winning prize is free tuition fee while studying there. The competitors are very strong and I was not up to the game. Therefore I decided to study in Dasein.

-to be continued..