As an Art Educator who has played a role in contributing his artworks to several Emerge Project, Faizal Hamdan is also an artist who is known for putting a humorous twist to his seemingly serious art pieces. Not only has he joined numbers of exhibitions locally, he was also privileged to join exhibitions abroad such as in Australia, Malaysia, Japan, China and South Korea. Most of the pieces he created evolves from his personal experiences with attraction to the notion of identity, time and space.
Relating to the theme Stereotype, we would like to quote Faizal’s word, “I believe that all living things are not able to refrain from stereotyping each other and being stereotyped at the same time.” Faizal expresses that just like branding or tagging (#), stereotype has a way of working itself around our human brain where when a label or a stereotype is given to a person or a certain group of people, it is automatically embedded in them. Similar to how branding or tagging works, every individual has their own way of seeing things, hence, it would differentiate the outcome it gives whether it is good or bad. (i.e subject matter, behaviour, action, outcome, identity, or personality).
by Faizal Hamdan
2019
Mirror and light-emitting diodes
His piece that is showcased in Emerge 7 is a continuation of his previous art pieces, one similarly titled as ‘Talur’(Emerge 4: SYNESTHESIA) and another is called ‘Human Eggshells’ (Emerge 5: FOLKLORE).His reason of choosing the same title for this piece was to show the versatility of the word ‘Talur’ itself where it is used in a lot of context. Bruneians themselves use the word ‘talur’ quite frequently considering how diverse the meaning of the word is. So to speak, ‘Talur’ could be an adjective, it could also be something we eat or the most common one for bruneians is that it is a name called out to people. According to Faizal’s “Fhikipedia”, when the word is directed towards a person, it describes a sense of foolishness or stupidity but is said in a provocative manner. On the other hand, when ‘talur’ is used for a person rather than to a person, it acts more as an expression, i.e awesomeness, disappointment, sadness, anger or excitement. ‘Talur’ is also a Bruneian word for ‘egg’ and another word for ‘kusung’ which means zero or empty.
He particularly uses a mirror for this exhibition because of its nature and the function. A mirror is something that a society use in their everyday life. Quoted from faizal’s word “We subconsciously shape ourselves into the person that we see in the reflection.” Whilst the printed text on the egg shaped mirror changed the whole context of a mass-produced mirror into a personalised item or branding, and at the same time bringing in the audience to be part the artwork.
To preview Faizal’s unique piece up close, visit the EMERGE 7: STEREOTYPE exhibition at Creative Space Art Gallery which is currently up and running until 5th May 2019. Along with his piece are 18 more artworks produced by 12 other local young and emerging artists that covers issues including family, gender and body image.
The EMERGE project is an initiative by Creative Space that is aimed to aspire the local young and emerging artists to further develop their talents where the gallery provides consistent and quality exhibitions to the public in order to make the local artworks relevant and competitive internationally. Which is by providing both physical and online platforms for artists to showcase their artworks.