February 9th, 2006
i came to Malaysia on the 20th of January for a workshop in UITM university in Machang close to Kota Bharu in the state of Kelantan, this is located in the north of Malaysia.
it was my first time to work with wood in a seriuos way… wood apperantly is a very nice media, i love it, it feels good when you touch it, and the grains look so beautiful…
here i have decided to work on a theme that was in my mind for a wile, i was researching and “diging” in Petra for the last couple of years on the sculpture and architecture of the Nabataeans, and the link with nature and so on… what i found is that they mainly used to carve or create one basic form, then add another element, which sometimes even looked only decorative, to move the form the had created… basicly it is very simple.. i have done a couple of sculptures at home from plaster on the theme, and discovered that this is also an abstraction of many creatures living in nature… here is one piece done at home with another picture of a facade in Petra…
this is my first sculpture during the stages of work, the last picture is of it finished..
this is the second.. then with the first when finished..
the third…
the forth…
all of us…
this is a picture of the students drawing… this is next to my sculpture studio..
monkeys here are so funny…
you can also see lizards… big..
these are maps of Malaysia
a mosque in Khota Bharu
a lion blessing shops and restaurants in on the chinese new year..
a nice place with waterfalls..
and on campus where i live… our own jungle
Some traditional fine metal work, silver… and some painting on silk, trditional.. the call it Batik..
i went to a budhist temple… the sleeping Budha… and a sitting one, huge sculptures, with many more scattered around, it is actually a semitary for Chinese living (or dying!) here in Malaysia… the place is so beautiful… it was amazing to see the simplisty of the art there, although it is so crowded and has so many details… also was strange to me how and arm of some statue might be broken and just placed next to the statue as if this is a part of its life.. the acceptance of the interferance of alien elements, aven in architecture and dealing with it so peacefuly, the feeling i got there was indescribable…
