작품 상세

It's true, of the saying, The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far From The Tree, meaning children revealing attributes of their parents. Taken in the artistic context, paintings from the same series or even from one night’s (bout of) creative binge are likely to betray some kind of similar strokes, thought process or idiosyncratic marks. This work epitomising the celebrated Tari series of Yusof Ghani is enveloped all round by a whitish or off-white mane, but the irregular circular motions insinuating sinuous forms are more about freezing objects in motion, rather than the motion itself. Called Zakwan, which roughly means something bright or fragrant, it shows the same kind of approach in a similar 1987 work called Hilal (meaning ‘crescent’, or a new beginning as in the Islamic calendar) in the permanent collection of the National Art Gallery. White is not lily-white and can have its blemishes, and harum (fragrant) can have darker connotations, as in the title of Suhaim Baba 2004 horror flick, Pontianak Harum Sundal Malal. So every tarian (dance) has its own sequence, beat or rhythm, but paradoxically Tari is not about ‘dance’ per se, but an act transformed into a visual maelstrom. This is from the first of his two phases of Tari series, just before adopting the ‘bandaged-figure’ hallmark (His first Tari solo was at Galeri Citra, KL in 1989). Yusof Ghani is a curiosity in Malaysian art: He was not trained at the Mara Institute of Technology although he later taught there. For the first 10 years of his art ‘career’, he was in art-related jobs but not as a ‘fine-art’ artist. Then came the American Dream – where he studied at the George Mason University in Virginia, USA (1981, BA Graphic Art) and then the Catholic University, Washington DC, USA (1983, MFA). On his return, he was to unleash some of the most memorable series known in Malaysian art: Tari, Topeng, Wayang, Hijau, Segerak, Biring, Wajah, Ombak…