GEORGE TOWN: IT was an invigorating final art show by 10 postgraduate students of Universiti Sains Malaysia's (USM) School of Art, who breathe new life to visual and art design.
The three-day exhibition titled Reinvigorate was held at the Penang State Art Gallery (PSAG) at Jalan Macalister.
Closing the art show was USM Dean of School of Art Assoc Prof Omar Bidin who only had praises for the artists for their exceptional artwork.
The students were exhibiting their works as part of their thesis which was a requirement under the Masters of Art (Visual Art and Design) full-time studio-based programme.
Speaking on behalf of the students, Mior Abdul Muneer said the programme placed emphasis on critical and theoretical exploration.
"Reinvigorate is the concept of our show. The term suggests the strength and energy to renew creativity with something.
"Normally, it describes a living entity. A human, for example.
"For our show, it would be used to renew, to reinvigorate our respective fields and hopefully to lead a new wave of artistic movements that would breathe new life into how we view and produce art," he said.
Besides Mior, the participants were Carol Y. Cai, Sharmela Madana Mohan, Aimi Atikah Rosian, Izzal Khairi Ramli, Rosian Chin, Afnan Munir, Ho Rhu Pin, Shamini Sukumaran and Nur Miswarini Mat Din.
Afnan's Aura attracted a lot of attention as his creation was based on his experience in viewing something similar at an exhibition in a foreign country, although his creation has his personal touch with a distinctive style.
"My works are inspired by light painting photography which is a new frontier in creating photography.
"By using extreme values for shutter speed, light emitting objects become the paint brush on a photographer's camera.
"The resulting photographic impressions can be described as illusionist or even appears as contour drawings.
"Variations of techniques can be achieved through variation of light source, giving the photographer a wider range of possibilities for envisaging and reassessing the visual," said Afnan.
Shamini's Typography Installation Art also captured the imagination of scores of visitors.
"Typography installation art is an artistic experiment using typography where fonts or characters of alphabets are manipulated from digital design and applied at the specific setting such as walls, floor, lights and fittings along with various materials and mixed media.
"Typically, the chosen materials more or less fill the space and the viewer is able to move around or otherwise interact with the work, so that they become part of that work at the specific moment of time," she said.
Also sharing the spotlight were Sharmela's The Four Temperaments: A Visual Identity, Nur Miswarini's Baby Lotion Gypsum, Aimi Atikah's Manipulation, Roslan's Illusion, Mior's The Grey Man, Carol's Embracing Motherhood, Izzal Khairi's Sublimation: Iconic Figure and Ho's Expressive Illustration.
Also present were USM deputy dean of the School of Art Dr Ahmad Zuhairi Abdul Majid, deputy dean of research Dr A.S. Hardy Shafie, coordinators and advisers of the programme Dr Izher Ahmad and Prof Fauzan Omar and PSAG curator Haryany Mohamed.