작품 상세

Is this the innocuous work that triggered or launched Awang Damit Ahmad’s celebrated Essence Of Culture (E.O.C., Intipati Budaya, 1985-1995) series? Though only regaling about childhood experiences and games played in his impoverished and insignificant village of Kuala Penyu (but Awang has since put Kuala Penyu on the world art map), it represents an integral ingredient in the E.O.C. narrative before the artistic repertoire was expanded to include implements used by the fisherman and the farmer, the bounty of the land, the natural environment and the finicky weather. The games run the gamut of Ting-Ting, fragments of the alphabet soup and the ole favourite of Noughts and Crosses, also known as Tic Tac Toe, where two players mark ‘X’ or ‘O’ on a three-by-three grid to complete a flourish that is horizontal, vertical or diagonal. This game does not even need pen and paper, sometimes it could be played on a sandy surface with a branch stick. There is a lot of ambiguous white space in the painting, which acts to hold the composition as well as to probably spell the mist of time. The farmer who became a Telekom technician and an artist and academician and showing his works all over the world. Awang Damit Ahmad reached the pinnacle of Malaysian Art when he won the Major Award in Salon Malaysia III, the nation’s biggest art awards. His other prizes are the Minor Award in the 1984 Bakat Muda Sezaman Malaysia and 2nd Prize in the Malaysian Bank Association art competition in 1988, the Gold Award in the Ecorea Jeonbuk Biennale and the Olympic Fine Art in London, both in 2012, besides Honourable Mentions in the Philip Morris Asean Award Award in 1994 and 1995. He graduated with a Masters at the Catholic University in Washington DC, United States, in 1990. His selections include the Contemporary Paintings of Malaysia in Pasadena, Los Angeles, in 1988. As an academician, he retired at the University ITM as Associate Professor in May 2011. Today, Awang Damit Ahmad is one of the most important artists in Malaysia.