About the Exhibition
HURT NEED UNDO LIVE / RESIST is a two-part solo exhibition by Jerome Kugan, comprising new works created over the past five years. Previously having lived in Kuala Lumpur since 2000, Jerome was a pivotal figure in the early-aughts independent arts scene, having been a regular presence at The Annexe @ Central Market and Art For Grabs before family matters compelled him to return to his hometown of Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, where he lived from 2017 to 2022. In between attending to his family, he continued to produce art using any available material as a surface. Distanced from the commercial abundance of Kuala Lumpur and its well-stocked art supply stores, Jerome used store-bought wares found at the nearest Daiso and recycled packaging materials, including Efavir packaging, a medication for treating HIV.
The first part of the exhibition runs from 6—28 August and features a series of triptychs made with chopping boards from Daiso along with a series of woven paper pieces and objects that the artist calls his “talismans”. The chopping board triptychs, which have opaque, tarot-like titles like The Unyielding and The Sign, condense colour, image, and emotion into dream-like symbols and archetypes. Meanwhile, the talisman works continue Jerome’s existing practice of linking image with text (as previously seen in his last exhibition, Pondan Nation at Urbanscapes House in 2018, where he combined text and colours to create satirical aphorisms on sex and gender). In this showcase, the talismans comprise a number of paintings on woven surfaces and small objects with the recurring text (and Part 1’s title), HURT NEED UNDO LIVE. The words are arranged in a cyclical square that serves as a personal talisman—mantric instructions for living.
From 10 September—2 October, Part 2 of the exhibition, titled RESIST, will present a selection of Jerome’s figurative works, painted on various recycled materials including the medication boxes, card, and paper. Figures have been a characteristic of Jerome’s practice since his first solo exhibition, Red & Gold at RAW Art Space in 2017, yet his figure paintings do not follow the traditional conventions of the genre. The large, anonymous figures in his paintings are, like the triptychs in Part 1, archetypes that renounce identifiable sexual or racial characteristics in order to capture a complexity of feeling and atmosphere. The figures appear in assorted arrangements, some completely solitary like ascetic monks, others within surreal, spiritual surroundings. Two large gold paintings are the centrepiece of this selection, like royal banners in a palace, its figures the holy dignitaries.
For all its psychedelic colours and surrealist elements, Jerome’s works deal in subtle, subterranean emotions and the full breadth of human experience. Their emotional range spans tragedy, pain, and death, but they are also imbued with Jerome’s unique sense of comedy, satire, and joy. It is an exhibition in two parts, but a catharsis of a larger scale.
Part 1. HURT NEED UNDO LIVE
Part 2. RESIST
About the artist
Jerome Kugan (b. 1975, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah) is a visual artist, writer, and musician based between Kuala Lumpur and Kota Kinabalu. A self-taught artist, he works across a range of materials including, predominantly, painting, but also woodcarving, illustration, and text. He has been involved in the Kuala Lumpur alternative scene since the early aughts, having shown his artworks in Art For Grabs (Epic Understatements, 2017; Talismans, 2016; Catological, 2016; and With Closed Eyes, 2013), The Annexe Gallery (2009, 2010), Reka Art Space (2003, 2005), and Urbanscapes House (Pondan Nation, 2018). His debut solo exhibition was Red & Gold, curated by Sharmin Parameswaran, at RAW Art Space, Kuala Lumpur, in 2017.
Jerome received his Bachelor’s in Professional Writing from the University of Canberra, Australia. Outside of art, he is a published poet and a musician with two solo albums to his name, and he had past stints as the managing editor of KLue magazine, copy editor at Junk magazine, and media manager for the Annexe at Central Market.
