His cheeky dimpled grin belies the seriousness of this young architect and newly discovered artist. His corner art was discovered by curator, Zabas, of the current exhibition at Petronas Gallery “working title – by 12 emerging artists” . And would you believe it, he was discovered at the previous Art for Grabs event which was held sometime in the month of May this year.

I caught up with Fabian, because I seriously like his work and of course emmagem.com loves to promote all things and especially talents that are Malaysian. I first saw his works at the Art For Grabs event and bought a piece for myself entitled ROT-ATE.
So when I got wind that he would be among twelve exhibiting emerging artists, I inveigled an invitation to attend the opening to celebrate with him and his girlfriend, his “emergence”.

His foray into corner art started in November 2007 , but even before that he had already dabbled in art when he was at university in Adelaide, Australia. But his artistic ventures stopped when he came back and started work in Kuala Lumpur. He got caught up in the intriguing working life of KL yuppies, his dark days as he calls it…working late and long hours, getting trapped as he put it, in the “corporate and material world of social contradictions”, all these were part of his “blending” into society past. There was as he describes it , an inner devil in him that was expressing itself in unhealthy and unconscious ways. Life was only about work and hanging out. Then he met his protagonist,  whom he declares changed his ways, showed him the light and hence his “stepping away from the dark side”, kind of like Darth Vader.

Fabian’s work like all true artists is an expression of his personal journey, in this case it is his discovery of his true self . His works are about the play of words and his humourous side is reflected in the pictures that he used.
He recycles pictures from old encyclopaedias and even used old wooden bed frames as the wood frame for his works. The wordplay in his works and the combination of pictures and the words send a subtle message about contradictions as he sees it. As his corner art is usually 2 pieces of wood joined together, he then blends two words and makes them into one, at the same time associating and disassociating them.

Take for instance the picture of a slighltly androgynous English lady, he puts in the title LAD-Y. Then he takes a picture of a group of men in a period setting having a meeting and entitled it HY-MEN. Or better yet how about picture of a war scene and titled it with the word WAR-RANT ; which could mean war , rant as in rantings of wartime, and that war is a warrant of death. Or ships going to war and name it CENSOR-SHIP. All the words either complement or contradict the pictures and tell their own stories.

He also puts in riddles which one have to look out for in the sea of words in his work, in HINGES and ANGLE (which was made from a wooden bed frame) , there are underlying words to be found which broaches on sexualism like penis and dick .It is of course very daring for a Malaysian artist to blatantly state anything remotely sexual but maybe that is just me. And the big question was, why the sexual undertone? To Fabian ,the sexual undertone is more than a breath of fresh air, it is the total liberation from all encumbrances that had previously stifled him. It is the most eloquent way he can think of to express the newfound freedom within himself and the ultimate destiny of his personal journey so far.
It is what nudity and skinny dipping must have felt like for a pilgrim just landed from the Mayflower and jumping into the great lakes of America , that very first time, ,the total shedding of all inhibitions…

So how does he get his inspirations… and where…does he think of a word and then search for the picture? Well, inspiration apparently comes from everywhere, sometimes even in the private moments of contemplation during his ablution, ideas pop out from the dark side and explodes into light. But why corners ? He chose to dress and address the corners because he sees it from an architectural point of view, where corners are always left bare and are mere angular parts of a room. But delving deeper, he also intends that people looking at his art should learn to see things not just from a flat or one dimensional view. And he hopes that his art which by the way is very functional, will also inspire young artists and architects to see things from more than one angle , pardon the pun.

Fabian , it seems is a bit of a dark horse , young and exuberant as he is, he is weighed down heavily by what he feels is the lack of creative outlet for young people and the lack of appreciation for the creative expressions of young people especially in the architectural world. An issue he used to feel rather helpless about but these days , with his new found wisdom , he has taken matters into his own hands. Hey, he reckons though he may not be able to change the world but he can change himself and he can influence people using his art for instance. And he has also taken upon himself to teach young and aspiring architects the finer points of expressing creativity as he is lecturing part time at a local college for diploma in architecture.

After all the reason he came back to Malaysia after working in Australia was because he wanted to contribute to Malaysia and that he certainly is, one corner at a time, one word at a time…

The exhibition is on at Petronas Gallery from now till the 12th of October 2008, make sure you check it out!!

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