작품 상세

The Tari Series is, without doubt, the most celebrated and sought-after in Yusof Ghani's repertoire. This work comes from his second tranche of his iconic series. There is more conviviality with the amorphous forms more enmeshed and interlocked with one another: hands, limbs, heads, torsos, all in rhythmic motion. He had recovered from a mild stroke in 1990, and there doesn't seem to be any let-up in the vigorous brush-strokes depicting dance. In Yusof Ghani's first tranche of Siri Tari of 1985-1989, he said of his works on 'the dance' and 'figure in motion': "The colour, light, texture and brushworks help to enhance and to transmit the qualities of kinetic energy. The act of painting becomes the tension between the artist and the canvas. The canvas becomes an arena where my abstract desires are executed." The great collector Zain Azahari presciently enthused about Yusof Ghani's "form, inner structure, rhythm, composition, and constituent colours." Yusof Ghani is a late-bloomer in art. After 10 years dabbling in art-related jobs, his biggest break came when he got a scholarship to study for his BFA at the George Mason University in the United States (1981), and MFA at the Catholic University in Washington, USA (1983). He taught at the Mara Institute of Technology though he was one Malay artist who had not graduated there. He organised Shah Alam Biennale starting 2016, and in 2017, he made his London debut at the Asia House. Working by series, he hit it with Tari, Topeng, Wayang, Hijau, Biring, Wajah, Ombak, Segerak and Kuda.