Lot 72
RAJA SHAHRIMAN RAJA AZIDDIN
b. Perak, 1967
THE WARRIOR, c.1990s
Signed 'Raja Shahriman' lower left
Mixed media on paper
68cm x 108cm
PROVENANCE
Collection of Raj Kumar RGP, Kuala Lumpur.
ESTIMATE RM 6,000 - 8,000
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This is Raja Shahriman Aziddin’s drawing study on silat movements and postures for his Gerak Tempur series. It is a symbol of the innate hostility in man in the quest for fame, wealth, property or women. The figure is exaggerated and almost alien-like with his big hands and feet and featureless visage, nevertheless displaying great skill and knowledge of the human anatomy and movement of musculature. The warrior is depicted, strangely, with a metallic plate like a medieval armour as if to compensate for a lack of faith, but apparently, all is not lost. The stance in this figure seems more defensive, the hand warding off his attacker while his other hand holding a keris is positioned in readiness to attack.
Raja Shahriman broke the gentility or kehalusan of the Malay psyche when he presented his Killing Tools steel works to the public in the exhibition, War Box, Lalang and Killing Tools in 1996. The stark aggression in those works was toned down by the time of his Nafas (Breath) exhibition. Calling himself a ‘blacksmith’, Raja Shahriman graduated from the Mara Institute of Technology in 1990 and taught at the Malaysian Institute of Art. In 1992, he won the Minor Award at Salon Malaysia. His monumental metal sculpture, Growth With Equity, stands in Taman Wawasan on Jalan Sultan Sulaiman in Kuala Lumpur.
REFERENCE
Gerak Tempur, Pelita Hati Gallery of Art, Kuala Lumpur, 1996.
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