The First Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

Mastura Abdul Rahman was born in Singa­ pore in 1963. She had formal training in art at the lnstitut Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Malaysia, obtaining a Diploma in Fine Arts in 1986. In the same year she won the Major Award in the annual 'Young Contemporaries' exhibition organised by the National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur. Since then Mastura Abdul Rahman has participated in several national and regional exhibitions, including '3rd ASEAN Young Artists Exhibition', Yogyakarta, Indonesia, 1985; 'Women in Development Art Exhibition', Kuala Lumpur, 1986; the ASEAN travelling exhibitions of 1988 and 1991; and 'Salon Malaysia', National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, 1992. Her work has also been represented in the '2nd International Exhibition of Miniature Art' in Toronto, Canada in 1987, and 'Indo­ nesian and Malaysian Contemporary Islamic Art', Jakarta, Indonesia in 1991. Mastura Abdul Rahman's work is rep­ resented in the National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur and the National Museum Art Gal­ lery, Singapore, as well . as in a number of public, corporate and private collections. She lives and works in Kuala Lumpur. Mastura Abdul Rahman began her 'Interior' series of paintings when shewas in her final year of art study in late 1985. T he overwhelming acclaim given to this work, which won the major award of the 'Young Contemporaries' exhibition in the following year, was doubtless attributable to its unique indigenous Malay quality. This dimension is still discernible in her current 'Interior' paintings, in which she purposely overstates the ornateness of the stereotyped interiors of traditional Malay houses. By arranging objects particular to traditional Malay domestic life within a diagonal visual framework, and depicting them from above, she presents them to the viewer in fully focused decorative clarity. Inclusion of items such as the congkak (a Malay folk game) and intricately patterned tikar (mats woven from mengkuang leaves) renders symbolically a sense of indigenous identity. While the perspective catches the viewer's attention, it also carries an important symbolic dimension. Religion and tradition dominate Malay culture, and the roofless 'home', wherein resides the 'heart' of the people, is open to Heaven. To MuslimMalays, harmonious living means not only peaceful existence within one's physical and social MALAYSIA MASTURA ABDUL RAHMAN surroundings, but also a life congruous with their religiousbelief. Mastura AbdulRahman offers a metaphor of this harmony which to her is 'central to the design of traditional Malay houses'. She sees the arrangement of this interior as reflective of the 'desire to create an atmosphere of peaceful and harmonious living'. Nature, the earthly domain that epitomises the importance of harmonious existence, is also a significant presence in the 'Interior' paintings of this artist. Believing that 'it is through the understanding of nature that we canbegin to understand ourselves, andGod', she incorporatesnature in her interiors in the form of floral motifs and batik geometry. Zainol Abidin Bin Ahmad Shariff 27 Interior 90/2 1990 Synthetic polymer paint on board 61x61cm Collection: Sim Tan Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur Bottom Interior 92/3 1992 Synthetic polymer paint and printed paper on canvas 92x91.5cm Collection: Sim Tan Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur