Suhaidi Razi explores contemplative ennui in a stirring comeback solo, writes Sarah NH Vogeler
NO topic is too grey for an artist and in these times when everything seems to plunge into the deepest pits of Hades, themes of the melancholic, that Chekovian Despair is perhaps more relevant now than ever.
Suhaidi Razi’s last offering was almost four years ago, his sculptures shown at the Publika space entranced then, as they do now. Paradox possesses that Hamletian quality, works which illustrate the artist’s feelings of isolation, angst, malaise, despondency and ultimately, that underlying hope - that unbearable need to be unshackled.
The artist has not changed much in appearance. He is the same introspective man who takes his time explaining the works on display. There is possibly one exception - he is just that bit quieter. Four years is an eternity to not have an exhibition and in this capricious business, “out of sight, out of mind” is a dangerously real thing.
Paradox comprises 12 works completed between 2013 and 2017, and one, almost immediately, jump-scares you into night terrors. Psychosis 1 is an interrogation of the terrifying fear of losing your mind. It’s deeply personal, it is a story of love and devotion, of misery and hope, of waiting for an end unwanted, but inevitable. It is one thing to come undone, but to watch someone you love unravel is something else entirely. It slowly erodes the soul, and immolates from within.
Horses are subjects he revisits frequently. Oxidised metal sculptures of winged serpentine stallions ingeniously twisted - his take on thunderbolt-bearer Pegasus.
The horse is seen as both hero and anti-hero, a creature immortal, a thing the artist secretly wishes to be.
Melancholy as evidenced in Paradox is the root of his artistic expressions -there is causal poetic “illness” in every piece observed, a dark blend of the otherworldly, the human and the normal. There is a fraught tenor to I Just Want to Scream (2015). His skies scream, they’re hissing cypresses of churned congresses gone amok, and there at the foot, lies a door to salvation.
The girl sits on a destroyed sofa coiled in a gas-mask, but the air she breathes is still acid. The bird cage she desperately holds unto is emptied, but never completely. She waits in the middle of a cindered field, her faithful horse-companion never leaves, even as he slowly succumbs to a poisoned world. And when he does, her pain follows.
Afternoon in the Kitchen (2017) is another delightful foray into the tortuous human mind. A woman is in her kitchen, sipping tea, (possibly spiked) oblivious to the infernal drama unfolding before her very eyes. But then again, she herself is in disguise; the shield implying that she too is an animal, and part of this particularly vicious performance.
Suhaidi recalls fondly of traipsing Europe in his 20s, spending every cent he had wandering through museums’ hallowed halls, staring at paintings and forgetting all else. “That three-year trip taught me so much, things no books could really say.
It was life-changing. I use a lot of found objects in my works; each object picked has ‘lived’ lives. And why animals in a lot of my works? I have a natural kinship with them, I keep goats as pets. In my works, animals symbolise an untamable force, but more importantly, they are inseparable from us. We need them more than they need us.
There’s a recurring theme in Paradox, of sorrow and desolation. But there is hope also, in each work seen. It’s not all gloom and doom.”
The insinuations in Paradox are that there is perfect motive for unhappiness today; it is not purely by design of biological or innate discrepancies. There is real reason to go mad. But paradoxically, there is even a stronger reason to grip faith in ways never before.
THE ARTIST
Born in 1977, Sarawak, Malaysia, Suhaidi Razi graduated from UiTM (Universiti (Institut) Teknologi Mara) Shah Alam and completed his Masters in Fine Art in 2005.
Previous major solo exhibitions encompass: -
Passage, NN Gallery (2011)
Dream Pipes, Galeri Chandan (2012)
Imagine The Imagination, MAP@Publika in collaboration with NN Gallery (2013).
The current solo exhibition, Paradox is his “come-back” after a hiatus of four years. The artist resides in Machang, Kelantan, where he lectures in fine art at UiTM.
Suhaidi’s showings include exhibitions at The National Art Gallery Malaysia, Taksu, Core Design Gallery, Pelita Hati Gallery of Art, Galeri Shah Alam. He has received numerous awards and accolades. His works are well sought after by prominent collectors/ corporate institutions in and out of the country.
