Thursday June 16, 2011

Exhibition fuses creative collection of paintings to couture

A NEW exhibition at The Gardens Mall in Kuala Lumpur merges the expressive worlds of art, high fashion and beauty.

The provocatively-named “The Gardens of Hidden Desires” is being held at Wei-Ling Contemporary in collaboration with leading beauty brand Shiseido.

This exhibition sees eight of the country’s hottest names in fashion and art working on a crossover collection of paintings, installations, sculptures and one-off couture creations that blur the boundaries of art and fashion.

Participating couturiers include Sonny San, Michael Ong, Datuk Tom Abang Saufi, Jonathan Cheng, Alvin Tay, Ultra by Tengku Syahmi and Jonathan Liang, Alexandria Yeo and Innai by Izrin Ismail.

Emerging artists are Cheng Yen Pheng, Gan Tee Sheng, Justin Lim, Samsuddin Wahab, Munkao, Faisal Suhif, Dhavinder Singh and IM featuring Marvin Chan and Izan Tahir.

“Over centuries, fashion designers have taken inspiration from the art and artists of their time to conceptualise and create clothes for their generation,” said gallery director Lim Wei-Ling.

“The Garden of Hidden Desires theme links them all together yet allows room for interpretation and self-expression without putting limitation on either the artist or designer.”

Within The Garden of Hidden Desires, visitors of the exhibition will be taken on a realm of contradictions where beauty exists next to ugliness, happiness next to sadness and good versus evil. It also provides an insightful look at the working relationship between artist and designer and through the complexity of this relationship, find common ground.

The highlight of the exhibition is arguably the giant-sized sculpture of a head made entirely of rattan by artist duo IM. Painstakingly made by hand over a period of three months, the work of art opens up to a beautiful interior that is utility inspired. Aptly entitled Arousing Venus, the sculpture’s influence is clearly translated into a billowing gown of silk organza by local designer Michael Ong. “Through the ages, the dynamics between art, fashion and beauty have been a consistent theme in the creative community. The aim of the exhibition is to allow the public to understand the dynamics and the inspiration behind each creation,” explained The Gardens Mall marketing manager Joseph Teoh. Project directors Lim and Teoh put in much thought when it came to pairing up the artists and designers in hopes of not just a successful partnership but achieving interesting, unique and exciting creations. This resulted in a diverse showcase with some designers drawing direct inspiration from their respective partners.

Other designers at the show worth a visit include Sonny San’s Lady Gaga-esque blood splattered gown of dramatic proportions which perfectly complemented Munkao’s pencil-rendered work of a life-sized bear entitled P-Bear.

“The gown was a technical challenge as we wanted to have blood splattered on the gown and that resulted in us burning four dresses when we applied the hot silicone fake blood before we got it right,” said San.

Artist Faisal Suhif and Jonathan Cheng’s premise of camouflage is a work on its own in which the artist not only painted the 12-feet long painting entitled Bluefish Morning but also on a 10m chiffon which was used by the designer to make the dress. “I had estimated about a week’s time to paint on the chiffon but in the end it took over three weeks as I wanted every stroke on the gown to be similar to my work on canvas,” said Faisal.

To commemorate the project, a special limited edition Zen White Heat Edition perfume by project partner Shiseido — inspired by the works of the fashion designers — will be auctioned off and sold in selected counters across Malaysia.

Proceeds from both the sale of gowns and makeup items will go to Red Cross Japan in aid of victims of the recent earthquake and tsunami.

“We hope that this exhibition will be another way of lowering the barrier between people and art to make it less intimidating. This will hopefully encourage more people to understand the curious relationship between art and fashion and the inspiration behind each of the creations in The Garden of Hidden Desires,” said Lim.

The Garden of Hidden Desires is held at Wei-Ling Contemporary from now until June 30. It is located on the ground floor of The Gardens Mall in Mid Valley City, Kuala Lumpur. Wei-Ling Contemporary opens daily from 11am to 9pm. Admission is free.