작품 상세

Night and day become a ritual of life to the solitary fisherman or farmer who trudges back home with only the moon as guide across muddied pathways. When the hurly-burly's done, and with the day's battle lost and won, it's an indescribable feeling to be back home to the warmth of a hearty meal and warm bed, and to be with family, even if they form shadowy shapes in the dim paraffin lamps. For tomorrow is another day, faced with imponderables. To be back each time from the back-breaking task on the padi-fields or the sway of the high seas with a good haul, it's a prayer of thanks to the Almighty. That is the harsh reality of living to the artist Awang Damit Ahmad when young, growing up in an obscure village called Kuala Penyu. Night is like a warm blanket, a salve to aching back and bones, a succour to face the next morning with the same fortitude. Moving forward with hopes and dreams, making an honest living. A comparative late-starter in art at the age of 27, Awang Damit Ahmad is a success story of an erstwhile farmer cum fisherman turned Telekom technician and then art academician and an artist of growing stature. His promise was evident during his studies at the Mara Institute of Technology when he was adjudged Best Student (1983). In 1984, he won the Minor Award in the coveted Bakat Muda Sezaman and in 1988, 2nd Prize in the Malaysian Banks Association art competition. He also won the Gold Awards in the Ecorea Jeonbuk Biennale and the Olympic Fine Art in London (both in 2012). In 1988, Awang was among an elite group of artists selected for the Contemporary Paintings of Malaysia exhibition at the Asia-Pacific Museum in Pasadena. He got his MFA from the Catholic University in Washington DC, United States in 1990. In 1992, Awang won one of the nation's biggest prizes when he clinched the Major Award for Painting (and also a Consolation Prize) in the 3rd Salon Malaysia III. He taught Art at his alma mater, heading the Fine Art Department for a year from 1977 to 1978, and retired as Associate Professor in May 2011. Prices of his artworks often soar high in auction houses locally and abroad. In Henry Butcher March 2021 art auction, his Apa Khabar Ledang (from the same E.O.C. series) was sold for RM 224,000.