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Faizal Suhif

DIAM DIAM

Faizal Suhif, Diam Diam, charcoal on canvas, 2010, 192 x 92 cm Diam Diam is a work of medium scale that possesses an impact beyond its size. As a piece that is both special to the artist and unusual in his oeuvre, the painting provides a unique and nuanced introduction into the work and artistic practice of Faizal Suhif. Formally the medium is acrylic and charcoal on raw canvas. A student of surface, texture and pattern, Faizal has left the canvas itself bare, eschewing the traditional primer, to expose the knobby and earthy weft and warp of the textile itself. The natural undyed shade of warm beige becomes the background onto which he draws his landscape. However, upon some careful observation by the viewer, the lines and shapes begin to congeal and to shift allegiances; recognizable images emerge. The gentle uphill mount reveals itself as a forehead in profile as the horizon of the landscape fuses itself into the image of a woman. This double layering of form suggests a concurrent multiplicity of meaning. The natural world is commonly referred to in the feminine, often combined with the metaphor of the nurturing “Mother”, indicative of human reliance on the natural world for sustenance. In this painting the mirroring of the landscape with the human form suggests the abundance and wisdom inherent in the natural landscape, an infinite well of knowledge in objects large and small all around us.

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We can read the image alternately as figurative (a landscape, a face, tapioca tubers) and as abstract (a collection of strong brushstrokes in areas of differing densities, organic forms). This mental flipping (from recognizable image to nonrepresentational forms and back) suggests the possibility to multiple and simultaneous readings of the work. So how might we understand what is happening here? And also how it is happening? Perhaps, the small area of blue (the shade of an old military uniform) in the upper left serves as a sort of punctum for the work as a whole, a point around which we, as viewer, can organize our perspectives and interpretations of the piece? Suhif often uses small organic shapes of unusual color in this manner, serving in contrast to the calligraphic grey and black elements and described forms. I would suggest that it is through the viewer's positioning of themself with regard to the these colored blips and shapes, that we organize our own ideas about what we are seeing and our relation to it, as if they can function as some kind of device or fulcrum. This line of inquiry may seem unduly philosophical. However, after you have listened to the artist speak about how the natural world inspires his art practice and how he views the beauty of the whole within the tiniest of details, perhaps it is not such a stretch. Through the contemplation of one small flower, might we discover our own place in the world? The title of the work references the traditional Malay proverb, "Diam Diam ubi berisi", roughly translated as "Silently silently the tapioca fills out." Proverbs are sayings inherently imbued with both a sense of specific traditions and metaphor as well as a telling ambiguity and possibility of multiple alternate readings. And translations are at best approximate and often unable to convey the lyricism and resonance of the original text. Nevertheless, a proposed translation into English of this proverb might be "Still waters run deep", a line that describes both an experience and a state of being. We might say the same for the way we feel as we regard the piece itself.

Charlotte Cousins (2015)