Graffiti Becomes Art on Canvas

By SU-MAY TAN
Graffiti moves off the city’s streets to become art on canvas and small works demonstrate big selling power.
Like most first initiatives, art collective Super Sunday’s opening debut is not without its shortcomings.There are no fancy flyers and the band that was supposed to come didn’t show.
But what this collective of four – with the appropriately emigmatic street names of Tha-B, The Kioue, The Damis, and The A80's – must be commended for is trying to promote the local graffiti art scene.

A showcase of graffiti font style.On the world front, graffiti art is now seeing buyers at prestigious auction houses like Sotheby’s whip out thousands for something you could find on a sidewalk, literally.
In Malaysia, though, graffiti is still often associated with vandalism or someone’s political frustrations spilled out across a wall.
Super Sunday hopes to change this mindset with the Disko Elektro Art Feel show that brings graffiti art to canvas at The Annexe at Central Market, Kuala Lumpur.
The paintings feature young urban people in 1980s fashion, retro landscapes, and fluorescent graffiti fonts.
At first glance, the works look like acrylic, but Super Sunday’s managing director, Tha-B, confirms that everything is done with spray paint.
This explains the paintings’ lack of detail and fluid texture, as if the artist had just bounced pigment across his canvas (which he probably did).

Kecik-Kecik features a massive array of works unified by one condition: they have to be small.“We wanted to introduce all subjects of graffiti art,” says Tha-B, 31. “Everything, 3D images, graffiti fonts, realist characters.”
Using spray paint as a medium, he explains, is far harder than it looks. You don’t have much control over the paint and even painting a straight line is difficult.
Furthermore, in Malaysia, the kind of spray paint available is limited to “cat motor”, “cat kereta” or “Nippon paint”, which makes it quite a feat if an artist can attain a standard on par with his overseas counterparts.

It looks like acrylic but this landscape was actually done entirely in spray paint. – Photos by IBRAHIM MOHTAR / The StarWell, you certainly have to give these guys credit for soldiering on in the face of these problems.
A trip down to The Annexe is made doubly worthwhile if you can catch the Kecik-Kecik (#2) exhibition downstairs from Super Sunday’s show. It features over 340 miniature artworks by 35 Malaysian artists and designers.
Like the graffiti exhibition, Kecik-Kecik is on until March 9 – but be warned, this is a “cash and carry” show, and works have been flying off the walls (and floors), so get down there quickly before they all disappear. The pieces are highly affordable, ranging from RM60 to RM500 with a dozen sold barely a couple of hours into the launch.
“The exhibition is a platform for young visual artists to showcase their work and have fun at the same time,” says curator, Mahathir Masri or They (pronounced, “tay”).
They proudly slaps a 100% local stamp on everything, including the DJ in the corner spinning a self-concocted brand of electro clash.
The “free and open” theme is apparent in the remarkable assortment of items on display: cartoon figures sketched on the flap of a cardboard box, 1920s-style illustrations, painted clocks, children’s drawings and morbid inks of skulls and ... a devil with udders – I think.
There is also a hooded-boy character that looks mighty familiar and which I am later told is the ubiquitous “Mista Why” stencilled in alleys around the city.
Some of the pieces may look like works in progress but the idea is to get stuff out there and test the market. They explains that the purpose of the show is not just to create a movement of artists but also to create new art lovers and young collectors.
They himself is a graffiti artist, who considers graffiti not just art, but a lifestyle. Compared to working on a piece in the solitude of your room, graffiti involves the thrill of the moment, the risk of getting caught, being faced with a big wall and just minutes or seconds to complete your work.
Of course, there is also the additional attraction of having your work, “Out in public, on show, 24/7.”
Authorities and private companies are now more receptive to local graffiti. But a thin line remains between “art” and vandalism.
How do you know if a work is art or otherwise? They says it’s all about “the attraction”. If an art piece can make people go, “Wow, I like this one”, “I like that one”, “What is that?” or “What does that mean?” – it’s art. (As opposed to a sign that says, “Beli/pajak emas” or profanity sprayed on a wall.)
For Super Sunday artist, Kioue, 24, it’s no brain surgery. “Kalau cantik – if it looks good – it is good.”