LOT 3
YUSOF GHANI, DATUK
B. Johor, 1950
Siri Topeng, 1995
Oil on canvas
26 x 26 cm
Signed “YG” on lower right
PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Kuala Lumpur
RM 3,500 – 7,000
“We’re like hiding behind masks, sometimes for good reasons and sometimes not.”
When Yusof Ghani took trips to Sarawak in 1988 and 1991, he was immediately taken with the masks of the Kenyah and Kayan villagers. He claimed, “I found masks interesting as they could be used as motifs in paintings to make a cultural statement about ceremony and rituals. They can also be used to preserve our slowly eroding local cultures and offer opportunities for a social commentary on human pretensions and falsehoods.” Topeng is basically an expression of faces, there are simply no nice images in it. It combines mixed media and oil in controlled structures, intensified by outlines, showing Ghani’s effort to explore new forms and visual approaches that are to the point, solid, structured and meaningful, such as in the case of this piece of artwork.
Born in 1950 in Johor, Malaysia, Ghani frequented a small movie theatre that was run by a family member as a young boy, where he developed a predisposition towards painting to depict movement and a sense of time through cowboy films. He cites Pollock and de Kooning as his early inspirations, but he eventually began to develop his unique style in painting, with masks being his theme for many years as a motif to explore human emotions and circumstances. The masks often appear displaced, implying the rough state us human beings are often in.