My father subscribed to life magazine. Life magazine in the sixtys was a really fantastic magazine. For incredible pictures and you know its a picture magazine. There was this spread from the renaissance. Series of new units. Really grabbed you know that really grabbed me. Ill go behind the armchairs a lie on my tummy and i was like popping the drawings i just kept copying and copying over and over again you know it was sensual. This excitement that i felt. Hasnt changed much to be. Let is something which which i think if i lose then ill probably stop painting. Just. I think its bananas so i think thats my favorite. This one here i think its something i like this one best. I like the way the two been on the sofa. Kind of untangle the mr other you know its like clothes spinning song all friend. But you have to know the scene to sort of sit comfortably on the table. You know sometimes when youre in maui to take your clothes off you dont. Not very often now that both my parents are gone i dont come down very often. Its not the same family house anymore but i think hes done a good job of building the house that kind of like same spirit as the front doors were never close you know house except its not. Used to have lots of room with entry. And all that thats all gone but you know hes planted lots of green it looks like a jungle now from the outside. Appearing the only. One piece of being a boy in the family is you know in a traditional house will get to do it. We will. But he will never climb the room with the entry and think that im going down because he was busy drawing all the time you know hed just lock himself up in the bedroom and just draw you know while i was the one who had to climb the tree split the room you know and then sort the room with tons out and distribute them to the neighbor there were. Hopes and aspirations. And you know or i mean of course at that time nobody thought that you know being an artist you know you could make money from being and i and of course my mother was worried you know because hes the boy hes supposed to have to support a family. I knew that when i was growing up i was extremely rebellious. My parents very religious my mother had someone come to the house to instruct me to teach me but i kept questioning him you know we had gone. Cossack im sorry but. In the end he left you know. He just didnt come by any more i think he was buying out of me. All the friends around the neighborhood. We used to run around together you know so my friends had a small bowl. Its not got. And theyll run home and. Months it will go on their mother will tell me what im going to be to get. To my favorite christmas. Chris is. Additionally some of weapon there are scenes in carvings. Which dates back like a thousand years before people forging the crease. So you know we usually call for this. Its a killing tool you know its meant to kill it is. Something that is. Dangerous but at the same time beautiful the blade is for what we call. A blacksmith but hes not an ordinary. Blacksmith. Normally who is is a spiritual person you know he goes through various rituals its almost like a priest he strives to put the spirit into it into the metal people sometimes nowadays look down and cross you know because the thing its. You know. For me. History. You know the people. Very interesting way of introducing things to the children. There was a time i think when we were five six he felt it was time to draw. One of us had drawing blogs and i remember. My sister and i were just not interested but my brother just. Drawing and. I was going to be. Because you have. To make. Me very early on. Something you know he was not like war he didnt do well in school you know who were around the house and said i dont need to study i. Tell him. He was very lucky when he went. There was. A great. Ok being a fine you know if i not see might not make money name pension was always you know after the foundation cause to go into fine arts because thats what i wanted to be you know. But then again you know theres voices from my sisters and my mother saying you know youre going to you know its going to be coming off. In the you know. What you need to design and. I went into design. School i went into commercial art. I was working as a straight. As a designer. And i was working on a lot of big corporate plans to go Like Singapore Airlines and see what the response we should board. Every week ill make maybe two or three trips to singapore to get briefed. Checks. But i didnt like the ninety five life you know i find it very difficult to conform to that. The meetings of the meeting easy nobody changes. When you do a piece of work. You are not there you will be here all day and have a ties or it was the build up. A bit higher. Really intelligent people to say. I was doing really well but i was unhappy. I just took tired of it all so i quit i think i could have a thousand and. Ninety one. And i started going to. Probably the most critical moment was this decision to go back to your home town i just got married a year earlier my wife was expecting i was with style. I wouldnt know whether i would make it as a painter. Went back to g. B. And i see it at the back of my mothers house my mother fed me. There was nobody my money i was almost penniless. First painting didnt work the second painting didnt work either until one day i buy a coincidence i met a friend who. Who knew. Where the senior artists in malaysia like the flock if you said do something as simple as possible dont think too much so thats how it is still life paintings came about and i think id be more simpler than a still life. And he was a very bold statement to make because in the one thousand nine hundred who was doing still like nobody was doing still life and he was somebody who came and said look im going to stand in the shadow of the masters and work within that tradition yet with a great deal of eccentricities me and a lot of quirkiness and of course that he has a great deal of humor hes a humanist person himself. So. I did the whole series of still lives of. Fruits to me various compromising positions. Thats where the work. Started selling. For a while it became. My. Ive always read. Through this to live on and off you know i might do three. To four pieces a year always like a. Like a long love affair with comics will be more like. I dont want to call this. But its a very family looking figure. This started at the shop and i thought it looks nice i was looking for a small object actually to put this big thing on the know something feel almost invisible. The first stages of painting is always very technical at this moment. Im just getting. To get to grips with the form of the whole thing. So i might not be too concerned about. The russell you. Get up before you cannot get to russell. The notion of a form in the western context and emotional form in the eastern context. Quite different you know within the western context form is it something which is totally physical. Looks like a surplus. All those working in the still lives ago but my real interest was. Over human figure. I mean certainly in the context of middle east and there are conservative muslims you know politicized muslims who feel that to draw a figure is against the teachings of islam. I dont. Think what interests me was not the act of smoking the small crew. The cigarette was covering the both hands free so. It wasnt a physical mouse but it was a circle which. The works after that took on a different dimension. There was a period when zak is on the meta you know i am actually did not teach figure drawing because of the influence of a politicized islam at the art school. When i was a student one of the assignments we have. For us history was to copy a painting by an old master. The painting that i chose to copy was the squares it was christ on the cross it was this a fiction. Was amusing at the beginning you know because its such a foreign motion. I was always intrigued by. I mean for religious to me it doesnt matter whether its islam just drive it through your buddhism or hinduism. His journey all these excavations have taken him into a part of both the military and Southeast Asian pop past that todays very contentious which is basically the very vibrant and still very vital please let me pass influenced by him to his. Hes painting a buddha its for example the millys didnt get rid of their please let me traditions be rationalized them and there was a process of a metamorphosis in which such views i think believes in very nicely with more mystical trends in islam and the malays were mystics. And that has been the experience of islam for all the centuries are. Very recent times in the past forty or fifty years. The challenge of. Pewter chemical islam has been a more recent one. The rise of wahhabi islam terrorism alqaeda islam nine eleven ism you know bush reactionism all these kinds of things we understand islam within that within that because islam has. So many dimensions. In which people can operate in gravity and our it is our reductionist approach not just by non muslims but increasingly by muslims that islam is exclusively and its this aspect of islamic law what can and cannot be done dominate everything from break im going. Back to school i found someone slashed the preachings. There was a group all. Quite radical muslims running around in the temples. In those spaces. And i think it was very. Honest it is a difficult climate to be controversial in this country because. You know that i feel that the controversies that attacks are really generated for political reasons. Theres a political project in terms of wanting the country to remain. And the millys in particular and the muslims in particular to be a certain kind of merely a certain kind of muslim you know conservative judicial no. I think with all fundamentalists and conservatives is a is about control conformity power and the having the sole power and authority to decide this is how you should think this is how you should act and its just you should paint. My frustration to london and once for me. When you live in really sure you dont go to see great god. The office the good myron you see the boats. What are you looking for and see a piece of art. I dont look i feel you know its small bar to the murray river the piece makes you want your hearts skips a bit youre not. Even god im interested in nor do i look at it and doesnt do anything to my feelings that. You know ive been doing much. The brains in the book is. Hardly in the soul. The sort of production. Well you know the painting on the wall in the theory of the cia connections got right. Nothing like that. You know a lot of young out this looks like a place like this. One the success you know but behind the successes a lot of hard work a lot of disappointments and so you have to live under all those you know not only out this who shown here had an easy life you know if you look at. Those works or see in the last gallery you know the right to see. You know those were the early days of modernism you know and they have to struggle to find a language a new language to speak you know to get rid of representation. You know so they have to feel that were around and that was it was an easy you know to do you look at that and theyre nice here in this. Nice modern music you know. The artwork looks so pristine on the wall you know the making of it is different. The thing we. Contemporary. Is following in western discourse you know so even when i was in school we live in western art history. Theres very few we should not history even today. History. And no one is really writing serious stuff about so they should. Look into it into. That Historical Perspective i think its a shame. If youre not. You go into. Western art dealer you see in them to see this. When you put all these things that you grew up with. These are mostly not really hindu theres a lot of mystical spiritual things that goes on you know she says she grew up we have the rituals and all that and how do you place that where do you place that because those things are not going to be acceptable. I love indian food so. Well you know and all shell be to. Look at that. Nevertheless im also yeah yeah you have to eat we can dance while Swimming Pool and small yeah we should make it so we think its me. Rebellion rebellious to be fashionable you know. But i think a lot of kids dont understand that rebellion is a process you know it has to end up. In some sort of conclusion you know you rebel against something bad. Not you have. The production in mind to make things better you know you dont just rip rumble but remember go see it special you know because. Remember this moment john. Its not a career. Youre a bell when you want to change that and. When ducking into baiting you see of course cause some conflict. Its a way of gauging social executes the sense you feel news and main news as pornographic i was in miami the coverage that he had you know to draw things that are not politically correct you know the blue dot the kings are the new leads in you know and these are things that supposedly the good muslim you know was not doing with selfclosing the raw self you know the conservatives within society but i think its irrelevant to him these are very important ways of challenging the notion of what comprises his i think. You up on and you need you die. And i dont think its. So much. And all but sexuality of the human body the duckies be occupied. You have to go on was a brain thing that triggered the new experience. I couldnt figure out how to make a painting with a new. The newts was actually a direct response to a smile involved and so it is not something that is ignored in this life in fact is contemplated a great deal in in islam the nature of sexuality which is then related to the nature of being all of these can be fine and so if you stick traditions and at heart i think hes going much suffused the painter. The reason hes not wearing any clothes is because i want him to be in his natural state so you know you can i did fight him whether. Hes wearing western clothes or euston closely or whether he still gets released or death race you know who he is so universal. It was something totally against islam. But then the works with never man to be about. You know off the system it has elements of that but it was never meant to be a role to go. Explicit. When i first started a new series you know there were. Responses you know some people think im gay. Which is fine with me you know. I dont for you find anything wrong with being gay. Some people thing. The. Very few people can connect it to something religious so whats wrong with being a rock to maintain. I dont see anything wrong with it and now if people one to choose to be offended by it then thats their right to be offended by it but they dont have a right to impose their values on other people who dont share those values so you know i mean what more i ts they should be totally free. You know to paint what they want to paint always remember that some of the most erotic poetry that you have in the world today written by most in this. Dixon people like rumi have peace and other and i see that in this light. Although you know the painting is this spring to bury me you know but to complete the work it has to interact with with the public im giving the audience. The minimal of clues that should be. So that you can open up your minds you know im giving you a lot of room to grow to do in the break. Religion and. For me the electorate and. I pads from various traditional subjects and in the works. The belly dancer. Actually it is next sauces and we should waltz music. Form when there is someone sick in the house it is banned by the foss government and plum time because its seen as a miss lovely. But. They still practice it today but you could be this other kind of things which would. Interest me you know that. That spiritual side of this performance is the dances the musicians you know theyre all. The dance drama form called them which is an all female form is very much rooted in the belief that we all possess animal spirits animal spirits then then define our own personalities so we may be eagle we may be. We could be a lion you could be a tiger we could be a wolf. And sometimes you know i mean like. A dirty little animal like. A small dirty animal i saw it in the singapore do you dont want to take it home if you. You know i was compelled to to make this bobby rush. Into something that which isnt profound even and i can only do that if i inject myself into it i give this little animal my personality for many people of course its shocking because we have been severed of that mythological tradition and today you go to large parts of Southeast Asia and particularly in malaysia not only are these kinds of myths. Not encouraged they are seriously abused and made illegitimate. The current theories are working on. Is. Build from the primordial god and. You have that thing within you that i mentioned is. Doing things beautifully. But then you have the other side of you you know the dark side. The more. Disturbing aspects of your personality that has to come out. In islam you know like in bali good and evil sits together. Both are creatures of god i see him within a continuum. Of artists who carry this primordial spirit that is very particular to this region when he paints he actually invokes an entire landscape of this of this place that has also very strong historical resonances you do understand that you are entering a landscape of color and of a sensibility of a temperament and of a kind of spiritual memory. John meldrum. Only if i got it down the leader of my being where i hang out. And i have to watch people. After i was in a studio will be always nice to so cool to please where. Theres a crowd. And this is my guy and. I. I. I. I know well you know everyone goes to sleep when my wife is sleeping and it fits nicely being that time for me is a stand especially because im alone. And im especially in need it like you know yes i dont get full goals. So its my this is the time i have for myself as we get it at night after midnight when everyone is asleep and you know thats my time. Was. This particular series that the sunni and the disappeared series was a series which i wanted to do especially on on on j. B. As a topic because at least once in my career i would like to knowledge you know that i grew up in where i was born. But disappear into those who do you started off the streets. And into their jollies behind the streets. And just record life. People do well in the fringes of society. Oh i dont think. I like to enjoy it because im anonymous here. Its just the place well i was born you know i grew up here its a small town very simple life. The town is growing also i might have to move. But. You know. The way i was born and i like being here. I dont like the big cities. Oh oh. This is actually a lot of studies which i did so i go on ocean city. We were traveling with a group of indignation artists we ran around so id gone looking for a model but we couldnt find any you know but in the hand. We found a couple of models in there in the brothel actually. We should who believe to pose for us. I dont normally do female nudes. I dont have much of a choice. When youre drawing in the nude you know naturally you know offices and comes into it you know. And here thing i tried to capture. That sense reality but very quickly. Although its a fairly conservative country you have. A lot of it is what you would call the moral police you know making s