FIGURE OUT

English 2 (ENGL 0205)

Assignment 1 Part 2

Compare & Contrast Essay

Daniel Yap Chung Kiat (0309100)

Lee Chee Ming (0308958)

The Figure Out was an art exhibition which located at Suria KLCC, Petronas

Towers, showed 65 figurative artworks from some of the most established and renowned

Malaysians artist curate by Professor Dr Zakaria Ali, a man of arts himself. There were

few art pieces attracted our attention. Yet, we had chosen two art pieces to compare and

contrast. Two of the art pieces which attracted us were “Hujan di Jalan Pahang, Kuala

Lumpur” by artist Raja Azhar Idris and “Sam Pek Eng Tai” by artist Datuk Mohd Nor

Khalid. It was drawn by artist Raja Azhar Idris. Raja Azhar is a full time professional

artist and creative director of his own gallery, graduated with a degree in fine arts from

the prestigious Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, Australia. He had received

number awards such as St Kilda Art Prize, Lord Mayor of Melbourne and The Victorian

artist society of the year award between years 1980 to 1981. “Sam Pek Eng Tai” is an art

piece produced by Datuk Mohd Nor Khalid, who also known as Lat. He was born in 5

March 1951. He works as a Malaysian cartoonist. He had published more than twenty

volumes of cartoons since he was thirteen years old. Among all of the cartoons he

produced, the best known work is The Kampung Boy (1979). His works mostly illustrate

Malaysia’s social and political scenes. In the year 1994, he was honored with the title

Datuk. He won the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize in 2002.

The “Hujan in Jalan Pahang, Kuala Lumpur” was drawn by Raja Azhar Idris. The

artwork shows the outside view of a car by a driver or passenger during the raining day.

He had used his painting technique to show the realistic raining scenery viewing from a

car by applying the blur effects. The artwork shows the incident of traffic jam during the

raining day and many vehicles were stuck in the traffic jam. It shows that there were few

cars, motorcycles, bus and lorries in front of the artist’s car. Every driver and

motorcyclist drove carefully because the road was full of water and to prevent them from

accident. There was a motorcycle beside the artist’s car and the passenger behind hugged

the rider to prevent any accident. The artist mostly used the brighter color to contrast the

building, vehicles and the weather around. He used the darker color to show the shops

slot beside the road and also the motorcycle that was near to the artist’s car whereas

brighter color to show the other vehicles that had some distance apart in front of the artist

car during the raining day. The artist also used the brighter color to show that some part

of the road was covered by rainwater. Yet, we still can easily differentiate the water on

the floor and the shadow of those vehicles due to the applied technique of color.

“Sam Pek Eng Tai” presents about a Chinese Bangsawan Play of the twentieth

century. The play was about a beautiful but sorrowful love story between a pair of

Chinese couple in China. Datuk Mohd Nor Khalid had presented the love story in the

style of comic strips. He divided the paper into half to obtain enough space for the love

story. The story runs from the left side of the paper to the right side of the paper. There

are eleven scenes in the art piece. The starting of the comic strip showed a beautiful girl

who named Eng Tai was dressing up in a male costume to disguise as a young man.

When she was studied at the school, she met a boy who named Sam Pek in the school.

They often played together and soon, they became good friend. They stayed together in a

room. One day, Sam Pek suddenly discovered Eng Tai’s identity as a girl. Since they

already had a good feeling towards each other earlier, they fell in love. One day, Eng

Tai’s parents suddenly summoned Eng Tai to return. They ordered Eng Tai to marry to a

businessman who came from Shanghai. Eng Tai refused to take the order. She was locked

up by her parents. When Sam Pek heard the news of Eng Tai was going to marry to other

people, he was very sad and fell sick soon. The sorrowful emotion had led Sam Pek to

death. Eng Tai received the news of Sam Pek’s death. She pleased her parents to let her

visited Sam Pek’s graveyard. She was very sad so she ended herself up by knocking her

head to the grave. The scene of the play of this story is shown in the ending of the comic

strips.

The “Hujan di Jalan Pahang” is drawn by using oil painting on the canvas. It is

drawn on year 1994. The drawing is based on scene that during the raining day and

everyone is stuck in traffic jam in their daily life. The artist fully used the space on the

canvas such as the road is cover by rainwater and vehicles’ shadows. The texture of the

drawing is a bit rough because it drawn on canvas. The artist uses the depth of color to

contrast the building, vehicles and surrounding environment. For example, the artist uses

brighter silver and white color to show that the weather is raining and the view in front is

getting blur because of the heavy rain. He also uses the darker color to show the hop slot

clearly beside the road. From the drawing we can knows that the vehicles is moving

slowly because of traffic jam and prevent themselves from involve in accident. The

drawing in the sense is imbalance because the objects drawn mostly focused on the left

side of the drawing and the color used are deeper.

Datuk Mohd Nor Khalid had used the ink on paper as the media of this art piece,

“Sam Pek Eng Tai”. This art piece was produced in the year 2003. As common, he had

presented the characters, the background and the action in cartoon style. The proportion

of the art piece is irregular. The left side of the paper was divided into four to show the

flow of the story but the right side of the paper is divided into seven, which six small

spaces on top and a big space at the bottom of the paper. The lines drawn in the art piece

were not perfectly straight to show the characteristics of the cartoons. Besides that, Datuk

Mohd Nor Khalid also applied the depth of the color to show the shadow of the people

and the object when light was directed in the comic strips. This art piece was seen to be

rough in texture because of the characters and the incidents presented in the art piece

although it is just smooth in surface physically. The art piece was not totally balance in

the sense of the composition of the comic strips. Besides, Datuk Mohd Nor Khalid had

applied the color black and white in the comic strips.

In a conclusion, during this gallery visiting, we have learnt more about the art

pieces in the galleries, the artists and the elements and principles of design. We noticed

that although the art pieces were the initial ideas of the artists, the processes of the art

pieces are based on the elements and principles of design. Different art pieces contain

different design elements and principles. We should appreciate the art pieces produced by

the artist because they are the handworks of the artists.

Reference:

1. http://www.arts.com.my/figure-out-exhibition-in-galeri-

petronas-drawing-inspiration-and-patriotism-as-expected/

2. http://www.rajaazharidris.com/bio.html

3. http://www.etawau.com/Who/L/LAT/Mohamad_Nor_Khalid.ht

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“Hujan di Jalan Pahang, Kuala Lumpur” by artist Raja Azhar Idris

“Sam Pek Eng Tai” by artist Datuk Mohd Nor Khalid