Studio in Georgetown

After the Pandemic, a friend invited me to visit his new gallery in Georgetown. Penang seems to be a recurring destination for me at different times of my life. I first went there with a first love, later returned there with other love ones and friends with no business for the place. Multiple crossed connections of acquaintances and old friends soon mapped out a familiarity for me.

Last June I decided to test out an installation of a memorial I had in mind for TianAnMen which I have witnessed live-telecast in the USA for a month in 1989. I rented a temporary studio, gathered the materials and held the candlelight vigil with an old friend from KL, and a new one from HongKong. On the last day of my stay in June, another artist friend offered me his studio for rent. I said yes.

Georgetown has enough conservation make-over and decay that it now reminded me of Singapore Chinatown where I had a studio in mid 1990s. So it felt like coming home, having left for the USA and back after 30 years.

What would I do with a studio in Malaysia when I still have one in Indonesia? For now it hangs another memorial that has involved so many friends and community sewings that rendered it not-for-sale, Looking for a custodian for a quilt that now hangs in a town of clan houses and ancestors.

A drawing I made of Convalescent Bungalow in Penang Hill. "Farquhar dan Abdul di Banglo Pemulihan"2023.

An old friend sent me this article of my former studio in Amoy Street Singapore in 1990s.

June 4, 2023 in a temporary studio on Steward Lane.

Photo of studio near Beach Street. Tikus, the resident cat, safeguard the Memorial Quilts that was made in Java in 2018, exhibited at ACM and completed over the Pandemic in Singapore with public sewings. Now looking for a permanent home for this set of quilts measuring a total of 20 m.