by Loke Poh Lin
COLOURFUL CHARACTER: Ungku Farrah with Birds of Paradise.
Loke Poh Lin meets the self-taught artist behind Seers, an exhibition that portrays the many things that have coloured the life of this disarming talent.
Ungku Farrah Rahman cannot resist colours. She not only dabs colours on paper and canvas, she also subjects the walls of her home to a healthy dose of pigment resulting in larger-than-life murals. Even her home accessories are not exempted from her passion. We spied a pair of lampbases gaily streaked in her signature hues of gold and green.
MURAL: Nothing is safe from this artist’s passion with colour. Note the painted lampbases on the cabinet top.
Farrah’s passion for colours has taken her on an artistic journey that has been hugely rewarding, emotionally, and professionally. She is now mounting her second solo exhibition, titled Seers.
The eye-catching exhibition brochure states simply. “I am not an artist. This is my passion, to create with colours.” Having said that, Farrah has been drawing and colouring as far as she can remember.
“I love colours and I paint every day. Five years ago, I had my first exhibition at Maybank and that was successful, so I continued painting.” And now she has about 40 pieces ready for art lovers to feast their senses on.
When you meet Farrah, what strikes you is her total candour, the lack of formality or posturing. She’s funny, warm and sharing. What comes through is a thoroughly natural woman. One who just loves to paint. With lots of colours.
A homemaker and mother, she is self-taught and has no pretensions to being what one would label “an artist”. She will be the first to tell you upfront that she has “no intellectual intention.” She paints what she feels.
She’s also extremely personal about her work. One of the reasons Farrah is holding this exhibition close to home and not in a commercial space is because she wants “to meet the people who buy my art. I can’t do that in a gallery”.
She goes on to explain, “When I paint, I am painting my emotions on the canvas and when someone buys my art, they are paying for a piece of my emotional investment.” Hence, a commercial transaction just doesn’t cut it for Farrah.
Most of the new pieces are executed in mixed media — acrylic and oil — on canvas with a few rendered on paper. “When I first started painting, it was on paper. From the process of feeling the paper, from using my fingers to form and colour, I graduated to brush work. You’ll see more of that in my new canvases,” said Farrah.
One other interesting quality about Farrah’s paintings is their size. Or rather the lack of it. “My paintings are personal, call me a storybook artist, if anything,” she chuckles. As such many of her pieces are quite small, about hugging size. Her largest piece for Seers is Birds of Paradise, which is approximately one metre square.
It seems unbecoming to pigeonhole Farrah’s paintings because it would unkind to slot work which is so carefree.
Colour-wise, she seems to be inclined to use lots of greens and blues, with gold accents. There are pieces which are surreal and have dreamlike qualities (Nelayan, The Unicorn, Karma); some are bold with strong, uncompromising colours (Birds of Paradise); and others have lovely floral overtures woven into the work (Essence). Yet others celebrate women and womanhood (Mothers, The Worshiper, The Third Eye). In fact, celebrating the feminine is a thread that features quite prominently in her work. “How can I not? I am a woman and I feel like a woman, and I paint as I feel,” Farrah remarked.
Experience a colourful journey with this talented celebrant of colour and womanhood at Seers, which will be held at the Events Room, Andalucia Pantai Hillpark, Jalan Pantai Dalam, Kuala Lumpur until August 31. For more info, contact Ungku Farrah at 012-2356-774 or ungkufarrahrahman@yahoo.com.
Ungku Farrah Rahman cannot resist colours. She not only dabs colours on paper and canvas, she also subjects the walls of her home to a healthy dose of pigment resulting in larger-than-life murals. Even her home accessories are not exempted from her passion. We spied a pair of lampbases gaily streaked in her signature hues of gold and green.
MURAL: Nothing is safe from this artist’s passion with colour. Note the painted lampbases on the cabinet top.
Farrah’s passion for colours has taken her on an artistic journey that has been hugely rewarding, emotionally, and professionally. She is now mounting her second solo exhibition, titled Seers.
The eye-catching exhibition brochure states simply. “I am not an artist. This is my passion, to create with colours.” Having said that, Farrah has been drawing and colouring as far as she can remember.
“I love colours and I paint every day. Five years ago, I had my first exhibition at Maybank and that was successful, so I continued painting.” And now she has about 40 pieces ready for art lovers to feast their senses on.
When you meet Farrah, what strikes you is her total candour, the lack of formality or posturing. She’s funny, warm and sharing. What comes through is a thoroughly natural woman. One who just loves to paint. With lots of colours.
A homemaker and mother, she is self-taught and has no pretensions to being what one would label “an artist”. She will be the first to tell you upfront that she has “no intellectual intention.” She paints what she feels.
She’s also extremely personal about her work. One of the reasons Farrah is holding this exhibition close to home and not in a commercial space is because she wants “to meet the people who buy my art. I can’t do that in a gallery”.
She goes on to explain, “When I paint, I am painting my emotions on the canvas and when someone buys my art, they are paying for a piece of my emotional investment.” Hence, a commercial transaction just doesn’t cut it for Farrah.
Most of the new pieces are executed in mixed media — acrylic and oil — on canvas with a few rendered on paper. “When I first started painting, it was on paper. From the process of feeling the paper, from using my fingers to form and colour, I graduated to brush work. You’ll see more of that in my new canvases,” said Farrah.
One other interesting quality about Farrah’s paintings is their size. Or rather the lack of it. “My paintings are personal, call me a storybook artist, if anything,” she chuckles. As such many of her pieces are quite small, about hugging size. Her largest piece for Seers is Birds of Paradise, which is approximately one metre square.
It seems unbecoming to pigeonhole Farrah’s paintings because it would unkind to slot work which is so carefree.
Colour-wise, she seems to be inclined to use lots of greens and blues, with gold accents. There are pieces which are surreal and have dreamlike qualities (Nelayan, The Unicorn, Karma); some are bold with strong, uncompromising colours (Birds of Paradise); and others have lovely floral overtures woven into the work (Essence). Yet others celebrate women and womanhood (Mothers, The Worshiper, The Third Eye). In fact, celebrating the feminine is a thread that features quite prominently in her work. “How can I not? I am a woman and I feel like a woman, and I paint as I feel,” Farrah remarked.
Experience a colourful journey with this talented celebrant of colour and womanhood at Seers, which will be held at the Events Room, Andalucia Pantai Hillpark, Jalan Pantai Dalam, Kuala Lumpur until August 31. For more info, contact Ungku Farrah at 012-2356-774 or ungkufarrahrahman@yahoo.com.
http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Monday/Features/20070826162830/Article
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