Issarezal Ismail: TIDES: A solo exhibition
Opening reception for the artist: Wednesday, June 16th, from 7pm to 10pm

This June, ZINC Art Space is proud to present an exhibition of paintings by popular local artist Issarezal Ismail.

Issarezal’s Tides series is inspired by discourse on the present-day temperature of Indonesia/Malaysia political and social relations. The series was created with an ‘on-site’ perspective as the young artist has been undertaking PhD studies in Bandung, Indonesia. Each work in Tides connects regional history and local current affairs with painting, thereby delivering an extremely welcome display of distinctively contemporary Malaysian art.

With the signature impact of Issarezal Ismail’s visual language, Tides brings to light the conflict between Indonesia and Malaysia over Borneo in the second half of the 1960s. Addressing this ‘unofficial war’ that took place so recently, the paintings in Tides are also a reaction to tensions and ownership issues over art and artifacts arising now from cultural similarities between the two nations and their common but conflicting desires to form unique national identities.

Thus in Tides Issarezal displays extraordinary maturity by the standards of the local art scene. His own imagery strikes immediately with each work, while the subject matter – important not only to the artist but also to many in and beyond South East Asia – is executed from a personal and therefore highly intellectual and truly creative perspective.  ZINC Art Space is the ideal platform from which to display Issarezal’s youthful energy and subtle sensibilities that see pop and traditional artistic tendencies combined.

For more information and images please email suraya@zinc.com.my or call 03 22825388.