The Back Room are proud to be participants of ART JAKARTA 2024, taking place at JIEXPO Kemayoran from 4 – 6 October 2024.

Our booth (A12) presents a line-up of Malaysian artists that we’ve frequently worked with in the past, namely: Chong Siew Ying, Liew Kwai Fei, Marcos Kueh, Nadirah Zakariya, and Ong Hieng Fuong. The presentation will span various mediums, including painting, photography, and drawing.

The Back Room @ Art Jakarta 2024
Booth A12
JIEXPO Kemayoran
(Jakarta International Expo)
Jakarta Pusat 10620, Indonesia

VIP Preview (by invitation only):
Friday, 4 October, 1pm – 6pm

Vernissage:
Friday, 4 October, 6pm – 9pm

General admission:
Saturday, 5 October, 11am – 8pm
Sunday, 6 October, 11am – 8pm

For a pdf copy of our sales catalogue, please click the link below.

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Installation views

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Artworks

CHONG SIEW YING

Chong Siew Ying (b. 1969, Kuala Lumpur) is a Malaysian painter best known for her dynamic gestural brushstrokes and expressive compositions. These paintings embrace broad themes such as nature, human sentiments, human connection, homeland and belonging, as well as references to literary themes and concepts. Chong left Malaysia for France in 1990 to pursue her studies in Fine Art. There, she enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts de Versailles and later at the Parisian printmaking centre, Atelier63. Returning to Malaysia in 1998, she held her first solo show in Kuala Lumpur in the same year. From 2000–2001, she travelled to the United States of America where she spent 7 months in New York City and 2 months at the Vermont Studio Centre in Vermont. She returned to Paris in 2001 and travelled back and forth between Paris and Kuala Lumpur until 2011. She has since moved back permanently to Kuala Lumpur. Her career has spanned a large number of solo and group exhibitions in Asia, as well as across Europe and the USA.

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LIEW KWAI FEI

Liew Kwai Fei (b. 1979, Kuantan) is recognised today as among the most exciting new generation of contemporary painters in Malaysia. Spanning over a decade, his practice explores the hybridity of the painting medium and its capacity to communicate ideas spanning class, race, and language to the humbling experience of the unspeakable when we encounter art. In recent years, his painting practice has been concerned with exploring the formal possibilities of both modern and contemporary painting. The idiosyncrasy and hybridity of his styles are also manifested in his playful creations of three-dimensional paintings and modular paintings.

Liew has had twelve solo exhibitions to date, with his thirteenth set to open at Harta Gallery in Kuala Lumpur in November 2024. His work has been collected by institutions such as the National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur and the Singapore Art Museum.

Instagram: @liewkwaifei

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MARCOS KUEH

Stamps were “tiny transmitters” of dominant state ideologies, historical narratives, and cultural values. Long before Borneo was marketed as an exotic tourism spot for adventure seekers, the storyline of a mysterious jungle filled with exotic animals have already been propagated over to the world, innocently bypassing national borders as parasitic visual cues on letters.

Invented by the United Kingdom, it gives clues to how the imagination of the identities of our ancestors were understood incrementally from the perspective of the West — most of the time independent of how the actual narrative of how the locals understand themselves. It is a testament of how biological science, for example, were promoted into dominance over indigenous knowledges and how ideas of hierarchy and commodity permeates subconsciously through the pairing of subject and value.

The woven postcard series is about the alienation of perceived identities. It is about the incompleteness of what it means to not fit into colonial descriptions no matter how hard we try, and attempt to make peace with existing in between self-rejection and self-acceptance.

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Marcos Kueh (b. 1995, Sarawak) is a designer who has always had a desire to better understand his place and identity as a Malaysian. He graduated with his Bachelor’s in Graphic and Textile Design from the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, in 2022. His practice is about safeguarding contemporary legends onto textiles as tools for storytelling, just as the ancestors of Borneo did with their dreams and stories, before the arrival of written alphabets from the West. Currently his artistic research is focused on evoking the presence of colonial narratives in our present-day lives and conjuring new myths of what it means to be an independent country.

In 2022, he was awarded the Ron Mandos Young Blood prize for emerging artists, and his work was acquired by Museum Voorlinden in Wassenaar and Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. His work has been included in exhibitions all around the world, including the Indian Ocean Craft Triennial satellite exhibition in Kuala Lumpur (2024), Manifesta 15 Barcelona (2024), and group exhibitions at Galerie Ron Mandos, Amsterdam (2022); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2022); Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar (2022); The Back Room, Kuala Lumpur (2017); and UNKNOWN Asia, Osaka, Japan (2017 & 2023). His debut solo exhibition was Kenyalang Circus at The Back Room, KL, in 2023. He currently lives and works in The Hague, Netherlands.

Instagram: @marcoslah

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NADIRAH ZAKARIYA

This series of photographs delves into the artist’s relationship with idol culture, exploring the complexities of fandom as she navigates the delicate balance between personal joy and global sorrow. Her still life works capture her emotional responses to the world around her, shaped by both personal experiences and current events.

The first piece, “Spring Day In A Box” featuring a McDonald’s BTS promotional meal carton, was created in May 2021, marking her early exploration of what it means to be in the BTS ARMY fandom and its impact on her art and identity. In contrast, the second piece, “Lost Laughters (Louder Than Bombs),” made in June 2024, responds to the tragic news of the death of a child named Ahmed Al-Najjar in Gaza, processing the loss of innocent lives amid ongoing genocide.

Both pieces, instinctively composed at the same location, in the artist’s home, reveal an unexpected yet striking similarity that connects her personal experiences to broader socio-political realities.

Nadirah’s awareness and deep concern of the situation in Palestine has altered her consumer habits and complicated her relationship with the BTS fandom. Their silence on humanitarian issues, despite their advocacy for peace, has created internal conflict for her as a fan.

The two works titled “A Field of Obsession: Save Me I” and “A Field of Obsession: Save Me II” illustrate the tension between the joy derived from fandom and the weight of global turmoil. These pieces also critique the effects of capitalism on fandom culture, as each object or merchandise represented in the works were purchased or received out of a sense of fixation, raising questions about consumerism and its role in shaping her identity as part of the BTS ARMY. This process prompts her to reflect on the para-social dynamics of fandom, examining the one-sided relationships that can develop between fans and idols.

With these staged studies, the artist invites viewers to reflect on the complexities of pop culture devotion in a world marked by conflict, questioning the interplay between personal joy and collective grief.

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Nadirah Zakariya (b. 1984, Kuala Lumpur) is a Malaysian photographer who explores the intricate relationship between identity and emotion through her artworks. Her work serves as a personal investigation, capturing the nuances of human experience and the layers of connection that define us. She received her Bachelor’s of Fine Arts from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City and is currently based in Kuala Lumpur.

Nadirah's work has been showcased in various notable exhibitions. In 2011, she held her first solo exhibition, Daughters Ago at the Lomography Gallery in New York City. This was followed by another solo show, GIRLHOOD, at the Leica Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, in 2016. In 2018, her series Fuji-san Love Letters was exhibited at ILHAM Gallery, Kuala Lumpur. Most recently, Nadirah presented her largest solo exhibition to date, Feeling Feelings Makes Me, Me, featuring nearly 40 photographic works, at temu house, Kuala Lumpur, in 2023.

As an internationally published photographer, Nadirah's work has appeared in publications including The New York Times Magazine, VICE, Dazed and Confused, Refinery29, and Vogue Italia. In 2022, her artwork was included in Thames and Hudson's Flora Photographica: The Flower in Contemporary Photography, edited by William A. Ewing and Danaé Panchaud.

Nadirah is also the co-founder of Layar Lucida, a women-led creative studio based in Kuala Lumpur, and co-founder of the Exposure+ Photo Festival in Kuala Lumpur.

Instagram: @nadirahzakariya

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ONG HIENG FUONG

Ong Hieng Fuong (b. 1995, Tanjong Sepat, Selangor) is an emerging artist who is currently pursuing his Master’s in Fine Art at the print-making department at the Sichuan Fine Arts
Institute (SFAI) in Chongqing, China, having previously graduated with his Bachelor’s from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. Growing up in a small fishing town where the pace of life is much slower, he got to experience all aspects of daily life to their fullest; these experiences and observations form the major source of his inspiration.

He has received various accolades, most notably being selected for the UOB Painting of the Year Gold Award in the Established Artist Category in 2019, following his selection for the grand prize in the Emerging Artist Category in 2017. Also in 2017, he was awarded the Grand Prize in the Nando’s Art Initiative competition. In 2021, he was an artist-in-residence at the Rimbun Dahan Southeast Asian Art Residency for six months. His debut solo exhibition was That day, I was sketching on the street at The Back Room in 2022.

Instagram: @hieng_9389

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