the 'drawing' of SULAIMAN ESA / TENGGARA 6- 1973

TENGGARA 6/ 1973
Dept. of English/ Univ of Malaya
Kuala Lumpur/  Malaysia

                           
            The 'drawing' of
       SULAIMAN  ESA

                                                                                                Introduced by
                                                                                                                    Redza Piyadasa

                                                         H.E. SULAIMAN ESA 'S  SHETCHES

THE 'drawing' of Sulaiman Esa which appear in the issue of TENGGARA reveal another side of the artist that is little known  -- his fine draughtsmanship.

Sulaiman Esa is one of Malaysia' s leading avant-garde artist.  His reputation has in fact been made as a painter made as a painter for he is a very sensitive colourist.  Born in 1941, he was educated at the English College in Johore Bharu.  After finishing school, Sulaiman was awarded a Johore State Scholarship to study Art in the United Kingdom. He studied at the Hornsey of Art, London (1962- 1967)  and at the Atelier 17 in Paris (1968).  He is at present an Art Lecturer at the Mora Institute of Technology' s School of Art and Design.

Sulaiman majored in Painting whislt at Hornsey but studied Print-making as a subsidiary subject.  His excellent draughtsmnship as an art-student must have drawn him to the art of etching.  Whislt at Hornsey, he studied etching under the well-known Bristish print-maker Sir Michael Rothenstein.  On the advice of Rothenstein, Sulaiman precceded in Paris after his studies at Hornsey.  He stayed at the famous Atelier 17 Print-worshop afforded him the experience of working directly under the famous engraver and etcher
 S. William Hayter.  The fact that Sulaiman is a highly accomplished etcher is kown only to a few of his close friend.   His 'drawing' must be studied with this fact is mind.

Since his return to Malaysia, Sulaiman has devoted all his time to Painting with the result that he has not done any print- making at all.  Part of the reason for this inactivity must lie with his conviction that tradional methods of print-making are really already obsolete.  The fact that he is an avant- garde artist might account fo this attitude of his. Suliaman believes that the artist of to-day must use the machine wherever possible to help him.  He explains, "I like the idea of getting machines to work for me.   Machines afford me a certain amount of detachement from my work and this is exciting.  I use the spray-gun all the time when I am painting.  Traditional techniques of print-making are laborious nd time-consuming."

Sulaiman' s interest in machine-processes must account for the 'drawings'  which appear in the issue of TENGGARA.  He does not consider them his most serious works but rather, they are excercises which afford him a diversion form his more serious abstract pain-
tings.  There are two basis considerations which govern his approach.  The first is a dependence on chance.  He browses though popular magazines and picture-books and selects any imagery that excites him.  These images are already machine-made.  Having selected his particular images, he sets composing a kind of photo-montage in which th selected images are juxtaposed with his own line drawing.  The photo-montage techinque restates the 'flatness' of his surfaces.

The final composition as decided by Sulaiman is taken in a commercial printer and a 'black' is ordered.  Once the 'block' has been made, the original piece of work can be discarded.   It was just one stage of the activity.  The 'block' is what matters and any number of  ''prints' can be made.  Sulaiman considers the 'drawings'  which appear in the issue to be prints which have been produced without the manual involvement of traditional techniques.  He claims, " All illustrations which appear in books and 
magazines are prints.   These excercises of mine have resulted in a kind of print-making."

In a sense, what Sulaiman is insisting is that we have to start looking at things quite differently if we are in experience the most interesting art-forms of our time.  It is an attitude which accepts the machine as the most effective techician around.  It is essentially that is shared by many avant-garde artists around the world.  The result is not anarchy but a requestioning of all the previously held notions about the sacredness
of Arts. 

REDZA  PIYADASA

TENGGARA 6- 1973

TENGGARA  6                                          67