LOT 27
AWANG DAMIT AHMAD
B. Sabah, 1956
Payarama Baru “Ubi dan Raga…”,2015
Mixed media on canvas
183 x 183 cm
Artist’s name, title, medium, size, and year inscribed on the verso. Also signed by artist on the verso
PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Kuala Lumpur
RM 95,000 – 160,000
Awang Damit Ahmad has developed an unmistakable visual language defined by expressive gestures, complex textures and evocative symbolism. His celebrated Payarama series continues to explore themes of memory, identity and the ever-changing relationship between humanity and the natural world. Payarama Baru “Ubi dan Raga…” painted in 2015, belongs to the artist’s mature Payarama Baru cycle, in which familiar motifs are reinterpreted through increasingly nuanced abstraction. The subtitle, Ubi dan Raga alludes to traditional symbols of sustenance, labour and rural life, yet these references are distilled into an atmospheric composition rather than rendered literally. Dominated by cool tones of blue, white, black and grey, the painting conveys a sense of quiet introspection, its layered surfaces and gestural brushwork suggesting fragments of memory emerging through time.
Awang’s restrained palette heightens the emotional resonance of the work, balancing areas of luminous openness with passages of dense, energetic mark making.