Follows the artist’s Southeast Asian Arts Residency Programme at Rimbun Dahan from January to April 2020, which was further extended into May as a result of Malaysia’s Movement Control Order (MCO).
“With the residency, I was excited for the space and time to isolate and reconnect with myself. During the first few months, I also had other artists at Rimbun Dahan with me. However they all left prior to MCO, and as the world started to shut down, I was all by myself in having to think through and make sense of what was happening to us. Also, what else could I do but to continue being an artist and producing work”, shares CC on her experience through the residency.
On view in this exhibition, visitors will be able to look through CC’s keen and observant eye, combined with her unrestrained playful thoughts on her experience amidst the lush tropical rainforest garden of Rimbun Dahan, juxtaposed against a sense of anxiety given the global pandemic situation. With CC’s artworks, nothing is spared her free flowing questioning mind; from daily routines, to people she meets, and even encounters with the animal world; each experience looked at with a whimsical and humorous lens. “I often try to capture first-hand impressions or feelings, and not what I’m looking at directly. We live in an image-saturated world, with each of us having a ‘visual bank’ in our minds. To create, we will need to be conscious of this bank, and throw it out. Do not be lazy to see differently”, elaborates CC on her artistic process.
Curator Sharmin Parameswaran further offers “Having had four months to explore in isolation, CC spent her time creating artworks and studies traversing drawings, paintings, digital mediums, and even experimenting on making paper from leaf, grass, and flowers. For this mixed media exhibition, we selected works inviting audiences into an uninhibited visual diary akin to a kaleidoscope”.
Additionally to accompany the exhibition, a zine publication titled ‘Hello How Have You Been?’ is available digitally and in hard copy. The zine contains a compilation of other artworks and thoughts from CC’s residency, and was made possible with the support of the CENDANA Create Now Funding Programme 2020.
Exhibition curated by Sharmin Parameswaran
About the Artist
CC Kua (b. 1991, Malaysia) is a Kuala Lumpur based visual artist. Born in Sungai Petani, Kedah, CC obtained a BA (Hons) in Graphic Design and Illustration, The One Academy (degree conferred by the University of Hertfordshire). She then pursued her Master of Fine Arts from the Graduate Institute of Plastic Arts, Tainan National University of the Arts, Taiwan. CC currently resides in KL, and All by Myself is her third solo exhibition.
Other available works by CC Kua
