A New Revelation

It is such a great opportunity to visit a prolific artist although I never heard of his name beforehand. Perhaps an artist is not as famous as a singer, actor or any political figure that a person like me who does not have knowledge within this field would never know any Malaysian artists like him. Visiting Mr.Tham Siew Inn’s gallery is the main purpose for us to conduct a trip to Malacca. Thanks to one of my friends (the one who receives big applause from us) for his initiative to put a great effort in order to make our plan to have a journey to Malacca, a reality. Despite the meticulousness of bureaucracy in conducting this trip, we finally made it.

My description on Mr.Tham’s art gallery:

1) When it is judged by the entrance, I thought that the place is small in size and I imagine how cramp it is for him to store all his paintings and at the same time to have some spaces for him to work.
2) But behind the door, stated a comfortable, air-conditioned place for all the greatest works of him. There are sites for postcards, books, pamphlets, his previous paintings from the earlier years of him as a painter and a square-shaped object made of one cent coins attached to each others by a magnetic source (which I thought some kind of a brand, new style of a sculpture).
3) There is a room that acts as his office or the space for him to work, and in front of the room is a way to the back site of the gallery that keeps some of his exclusive paintings on canvas and drawing block, a collection of opals, some sculptures stored in a glass cupboard (boys look interested on this one---there is one sculpture that seems attract them most) and at the back of the gallery is the kitchen and what interest us a lot is the garden with a small fish pond made of a bath tub.
4) The upper floor is the place that keeps his original paintings and some of the old pictures of him from the earlier years of him as a painter.

I always dream of having a beautiful, serene art gallery with various, exclusive paintings of mine. I love to draw and I do have a collection of my own drawings from my schooling age till now; not mentioning the quality of them. Therefore, a trip to an art gallery to meet an artist is a new, tremendous lesson for me as a basic “painter”--- if I can be addressed as such. Being in Tham Siew Inn’s gallery for almost two hours is an eye-opener for me because that is the first time we are taught the right way of looking at a painting; we have to stand quite a distance away that the image or the message will appear.

To be a painter, according to him, we have to get involved and mingle with all people regardless of the social class and status. A painter is a person who has the sensitivity upon looking at any things, human, animals and others. The sensitivity is what a painter brings into a canvas as a painting; with underlying messages and perspectives of him. A great painting is not only the one which is being favored a lot with a higher price but it is a way of the painter expressing his thought or idea. As what Mr.Tham says, “a painter is not a good speaker”, thus the touch of his brush will be the only way of him to articulate what is in his mind. On the whole, this is really a great experience of all.

*the square-shaped that at first I thought of as a sculpture made of one cent coins is actually for the purpose of marking any postcards you would like to buy by putting the coin on top of them. I learn this too...