SEKARANG: Ipoh Contemporary Art Festival

A contemporary art festival in Ipoh kicked off mid-week at Pi Hotel. The art festival, with the theme “Mom”, sees some thirty artists, both young and veterans, getting together to showcase their talent and creativity.

Sponsored by Pi Hotel with the collaboration of Artseni Gallery and artCorridor, the festival incorporates three levels of art.

The first would be street art, where the hotel has been adorned with large murals on its exterior. All these pieces of art were painted by a group of eleven young and dynamic artists based in Kuala Lumpur, who came to Ipoh to work on these art for a week some time in August.

These artists are also here for the festival, taking up residency on the second floor of the hotel, which makes the second part of the festival.

Each artist is assigned a room, which is used to display ten pieces of the artist’s personal work; whether painting, sculpture or installation.

These rooms are open to the public to view the artwork, allowing them to visualise how the piece will look like at their own home. The cosy and relaxed atmosphere also makes it easy for strangers to open up and for curious visitors to chat with the artist about art and the inspiration and idea behind each piece.

By the way, this concept of residency art display in hotel rooms is a new concept in Perak, although it is not unusual in other more developed cities like Shanghai and Hong Kong.

This residency, which sees a group of younger artists, ends tomorrow, September 13, at 6.30pm. Interestingly, except for one, they all graduated from National Arts Culture and Heritage Academy (ASWARA).

According to the spokesperson, Izzat Aziz, all the art pieces are for sale and because they are new artists, they are appreciative of the opportunity provided by Pi Hotel to showcase their work via mini solo exhibitions outside of Kuala Lumpur. The art pieces here are priced from RM100 to RM3,000.

The third part of the festival is an exhibition on the first floor of the hotel, where the function hall is, the thirty artists have jointly exhibited their artwork.

These also include work by veteran artists and popular Ipoh-based artists, such as sculptor Vooi Yam and ceramic artist Ng Sook Peng.

This temporary art gallery is open to the public until October 30, 2015. Again, these are for sale.

I earnestly urge all art lovers to make a visit to Pi Hotel soon as this is an awesome opportunity to see the impressive talent that we have amidst us.

The entire festival, which is called SEKARANG (NOW), is curated by Philip Wong, founder of Artseni Gallery.

Event: SEKARANG: Ipoh Contemporary Art Festival
Venue: Pi Hotel, Ipoh
Date: 9th Sept. to 30th Oct., 2015
Time: 11am – 6pm

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