What angle does one adopt when looking at Roslisham Ismail’s latest? I’ve been racking my brain for days. The works of Ise (as Roslisham is popularly known) are not pornographic, thoughtlessly crude, dark, or colourfully eccentric. I must confess that they don’t excite me much. But I’ve always liked his work; and Keluar 90 Hari -- a collection of drawings, photomontages, collages and other paraphernalia, edited and published in book form -- is enough to stir my curiosity.

Keluar 90 Hari also happens to be the name of a month-long solo exhibition at the Australian High Commission (January 18th to February 7th). As the fourth recipient of the Australian High Commission Visual Arts Residency Award, Ise spent three months -- June 16th to August 29th 2006 -- at a studio under the Gunnery Visual Arts Centre in Sydney, working on whatever he was supposed to work on. With this collection, a showcase of 11 limited edition digital prints (20 x 30 inches) carefully selected from the book (RM50; also a limited run) we finally know what he’d been up to, while he was there: having a heck of a good time!

That lucky wanker.

Lala Dada

Can Ise’s work be compared to those of Hannah Hoch and Raoul Hausmann, members of the 1920s Berlin Dada Movement, who -- in order to critique and comment on the socio-political foibles of their day, and to produce personal observations and reflections -- found photomontage and collage (they were the forerunners of that technique, not Picasso or Braque) to be an excitingly powerful medium? I believe he is well acquainted with the mischievous and playful -- yet scathing -- criticality that is the spirit and the ideology of Dadaism. Just look at his collage on August 31st: three dancing, clockwork couples, with the text: ‘SUSAH MENTAL BLOCK’, and smaller: ‘Never never grow up’, and smaller still: ‘even after 49’.

What about the sources of the images he uses? Ise keeps himself abreast with contemporary popular music, art, design and culture -- though in the case of Keluar 90 Hari he borrows mostly from music related print material (primarily drum and bass gig flyers), mainly because it was readily and freely available, easily picked up during his excursions into Sydney. Having acquired these items, he then cuts, rearranges, and draws or paints over them, injecting meanings that are deeply personal over popular images.

And though these collages are visual responses to issues and situations, states of mind, questions, hopes, and fears -- as well as the unexpected (but positively delightful) outcomes that emerge from them -- the look that the works employ reveal Ise’s interest in, and engagement with, his sources. It is not far-fetched to say that Keluar 90 Hari is like a collection of music album covers, record sleeves and flyers compiled into a book.

Why publish it as a book in the first place? According to Ise, the book was designed to make his works widely accessible: it is affordable, portable and allows the audience an intimate glimpse into his private world. It is designed and structured in a narrative manner: a visual diary of Ise’s 90 days in Sydney.

 Incoming!

I recalled why I was emphatic with Ise’s works in the first place: naïve optimism, coupled with a childishly disarming honesty -- and his natural ability to pluck out images, objects, and phrases from anywhere, mix them so effortlessly, and construct messages or associations with whichever context he fancies. It is a delight to viewers; and, I dare say, to the artist himself; and especially to those who’ve followed Ise’s career closely enough to be aware of the private jokes that are behind some of the works in this collection.

The presence of personal archetypal images such as ‘The Robot and His Dog’, ‘The Halo’, ‘Wings’, and ‘The Shadow’ -- familiar from previous works -- are now joined by two new icons: ‘The Giving Tree’, which possibly represents those gracious souls who helped him along the way; and ‘The Missile’, which is symbolic of the art proposals Ise sent out to procure funding and other art residencies from around the world.

Just like the projectiles to which they are likened, these proposals had a 50 / 50, direct hit / blind miss probability ratio; as far as I can tell, the artist has had more hits than misses. Within a few weeks of completing his residency, Ise had his first solo show at Sydney’s 4A Gallery (it’s alumni include celebrated Malaysian artist Wong Hoy Cheong). A chance meeting with Malaysian-born, Australia-based artist Simryn Gill (she was the first Malaysian to be invited to participate in the Venice Biennale; she had a solo recently at the Tate Modern Art Museum) at the Sydney Biennale forum, led her to officiate not only Ise’s 4A show, but his Kuala Lumpur exhibition, as well.

A Man With a Mission

What’s next? Ise tells me he’s off to Germany, with fellow visual artist Nur Hanim Khairuddin, to present Sentap!, an arts magazine -- featuring news, reviews and essays on contemporary art by both Malaysian and regional writers; now in its fifth issue -- that he and Hanim edits. In May, Ise will be flying back to Sydney for a re-launch of his book (venue to be confirmed). In August, he will be creating a solo project for Yogyakarta’s Kedai Kebun Forum. In September, he’ll be off to Ho Chi Minh City, at the invitation of alternative arts space A Little Blah-blah for a seven week residency.

‘Keluar 90 Hari’ not only refers to the duration of Ise’s residency (he was there longer, of course), but may also allude to the concept of Tabligh a Muslim missionary and revival movement that aims to spread / share spiritual enlightenment among other, fellow Muslims. In this case, the outcome is Keluar 90 Hari, the book; though purely secular in its concerns, Ise probably can’t help feeling the presence of a higher power, bestowing him with an extended duration of good fortune. Somebody up there likes him. Don’t believe me? Buy the book and read it lah!

In a way, Ise is a man on a mission: a mission to spread this message ‘just be urself and everything will be OK’. That lucky wanker.

~~~

Tan Sei Hon is a part time worker and a full time wanker.