Hasanul Isyraf Idris – Constructing Worlds

Hasanul will describe his work as cycles of building and destroying, Malaysia as a place of constant flux. He recalls the memories and emotions from his schooling days as his nation built visions, yet its people were in a state of limbo. He recalls the largest power plant in West Malaysia nearby his hometown, Manjung Power plant. Coal-fired and sitting on man-made land, he described the absurdity of such infrastructural projects.

Curator field notes by Rebecca Yeoh, 2021

Hasanul Isyraf Idris (b. 1978, Malaysia) was trained at Mara University of Technology (UiTM), Perak, and is presently based in Penang. His practice spans a variety of media, including painting, drawing, installation, video work and sculpture. His works typically manifest a fictional, surreal iconography drawn from personal invention as from a melange of pop cultural references, such as comic books, science fiction, street art and film. He personifies his personal struggles as an artist with strange characters that inhabit his invented universes.

He was a finalist in the Bakat Muda Sezaman (Young Contemporaries) Awards in 2007, and has shown in Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, India, Switzerland and Jakarta. Selected exhibitions include: HOL: Scab: Crying Tiger In The Night Market (2019) at Art Jakarta, HOL Chapter 2.3, Wound: Environment of Naga and Doubt (2016) at VOLTA NY, United States, HOL Chapter 3, Scab: Lucky Draw (2018), HOL Chapter 1: The Fall (2016), Back from Planet Luvox (2014), Clash of the Pigments (2011), all at Richard Koh Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Public collections include Singapore Art Museum (SAM), Galeri Z (Malaysia) and ILHAM Gallery (Malaysia).