By CHIN JIAN WEI
Gabriel Cheah’s work is instantly memorable. There is a certain blissful, angelic look to his sculptures, married with visceral, almost painful-looking details. Scintillating flowers and coral erupt from organic-looking structures, the holes they make bleeding gold. Despite this, the sculptures are beautiful and otherworldly. The exhibition, presented by art collective KolmeGlu, has an air of the surreal and blissful, accentuated by the gentle music and pristine furniture.
The title of the exhibition, COLLAPSE is, just like the art, ominous on the surface, but hiding great beauty and optimism under the surface. Cheah says, “Normally people think after a (global) collapse, the world would fall into darkness, but from my point of view, after the collapse comes rebirth.” Interpreting his work through the context of the title gives new meaning: the art is about rebuilding and growth, not destruction. This, in conjunction with the otherworldly imagery of his art, evokes common themes woven throughout ancient religion and myth; the rebuilding of the universe after Ragnarok, the Buddhist cycles of life-death-rebirth, so on and so forth.
Recalling mythic patterns is not the main point of Cheah’s art, however. He is an artist concerned primarily with creating uplifting and positive art. “There is so much heavy art in Malaysia,” he says. “To me, when you buy a certain piece of art, you are buying the energy that the artist who made it put inside. I want people to find the little joys in their life. Joy is everywhere if you look at the little things in life.”
He shows me the piece titled Joyful, depicting Cheah’s interpretation of the archangel Gabriel, who as an angel, is a messenger of God. “After the current world has collapsed, Gabriel brings the new ingredients to the new world, joy, union, peace, hope, freedom, harmony, love, and balance,” Cheah says. The shooting stars in the painting represent those ingredients falling on to the new world.
We move on to another of Cheah’s pieces, called Freedom. This is a sculpture depicting hands emerging out of a cloud, seeming to mould and shape the cloud itself. “It is freedom because we can be whatever we want to be,” Cheah says in explanation. “You have to really understand yourself and what you want in life, so you start developing yourself from the inside out. The hands will come from the inside and shape yourself. Clouds can be any shape.”
Cheah also explains the reason for the imagery of flowers emerging from his structures, as seen in New Hope. The blooming orchids represent our potential to bloom if placed in the right environments. Peace is another similar piece, showing flowers and coral blooming out of holes in a green, rounded structure. “The holes represent past trauma, the things you cannot erase,” Cheah says. “I cannot change them, but I can change my perspective, and make the scars look better. I choose to be happy. I have to accept all these things, because without the trauma, the me of today would not have appeared.”
Harmony has a similarly uplifting message. The art depicts a figure rising on the top of a jellyfish. Cheah says, “When people see a jellyfish, they normally just think that it’s venomous. But the top of the jellyfish is actually safe. So we have to find that safe zone to live in harmony with others.” According to Cheah, this can be read as an analogy to how people need to understand the safe zones of others and rise together, especially in multiracial and multicultural countries like Malaysia.
Cheah encourages other artists to forge their own path, and not be tied down by the ways of the generation that has come before. He is a true free spirit, disliking being controlled by others, and is determined to shape his own future. With his unique skills and artistic vision, his future seems bright indeed.
COLLAPSE by Gabriel Cheah is Gabriel’s debut solo exhibition produced by Megat Ammar under the KolmeGlu Art Collective banner. It is only on display until the 27th of July 2024, so catch it this weekend! Also, keep your eyes peeled for an upcoming 3D Virtual Experience using 3D mapping technology for Gabriel Cheah’s solo exhibit! Follow his and KolmeGlu’s Instagram pages to keep up with the updates.
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