Carbon Organika is a collaborative, process-driven project helmed by Jalaini “Jai” Abu Hassan, one of Malaysia’s most celebrated contemporary artists. In Carbon Organika, Jai continues his search for new ground to break into, this time through the strategy of collaborations. The project’s scope combines art, craft, and technology, jumping between past, present, and future art forms in an exciting cross-disciplinary exchange.
A series of new drawings by Jai forms the project’s unifying centre. The drawings feature ambiguous forms, or “specimens”, inspired by organic matter in nature. The Carbon Organika specimens are brought to three-dimensional life through a collaboration with the ceramic artisans of Bendang Studio, who have turned the drawings into sculpted ceramics on which Jai works his magic with his arsenal of charcoal, graphite, and bitumen. At the same time, the project enlists Wesley Wong of Giclee Art to reproduce the drawings in limited edition museum-quality giclee prints. Wesley’s refined image reproduction allows Jai to turn his drawings into high-end “merchandise”, tapping into a rising consciousness within the art world of the need to improve accessibility to art and challenge the traditional modes of art acquisition.
Carbon Organika is presented in three simultaneous showcases that are adapted for different contexts. The original drawings and a selection of ceramics are exhibited at The Back Room gallery with more ceramics and prints being sold at Kasa Suasa, Bukit Tunku The project’s documentation and initial mock-ups are on display at Galeri RumahLukis in Carbon Organika: The Process, a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the works and the coming-together of the collaboration. The Process is supplemented by a programme of talks and workshops involving all of the collaborators.
Carbon Organika
A project by Jalaini Abu Hassan
The Back Room
First Floor, 80A Jalan Rotan, Off Jalan Kampung Attap 50460 Kuala Lumpur
Exhibition dates: 28 May - 12 June 2022
Opening hours: Wednesday to Sunday 12 - 6 pm
Enquiries: hello@thebackroomkl.com
Kasa Suasa, Bukit Tunku
Unit i4, Block I The Stories of Taman Tunku, Jln Langgak Tunku, Bukit Tunku, 50480 Kuala Lumpur
Opening hours: Wednesday to Sunday: 11am - 6pm
Enquiries: farha.nor@gmail.com
Carbon Organika: The Process @ RumahLukis Gallery
11, Jalan AU5D/4, Lembah Keramat Hulu Klang, 54200 Kuala Lumpur
Exhibition dates: 5 June - 28 August 2022
Opening hours: Saturday & Sunday: 2 - 6pm
Enquiries: galerirumahlukis@gmail.com
About the artist
Jalaini Abu Hassan or “Jai” (b. 1963, Selangor) is a contemporary Malaysian artist whose works are inspired by current events, expressed in local and familiar imagery and focused through his personal lens of nostalgia and history.
He received his bachelor’s degree from the MARA Institute of Technology (UiTM) in 1985. Following that, he received scholarships to pursue further studies at the prestigious institutions of the Slade School of Fine Art in London (1988) and the Pratt Institute in New York (1994), where he obtained his master’s degree and master of fine art respectively.
A process painter, Jai is interested in the exploration of the act of creating a work, the exploration of materials and mediums, and the marks that form a drawing. He is always pushing boundaries in search of new processes and methods of presenting a Malaysian visual vernacular which would accurately capture his identity and culture.
Acclaimed at home and internationally, Jai has held solo exhibitions in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the US. Recent exhibitions of note include Landskap Daerah Samar at Segaris Art Center, Kuala Lumpur (2021); Cerpan-Cerpen at OUR ArtProjects, Kuala Lumpur (2018); Painting Industry at Equator Art Projects, Gilman Barracks, Singapore (2015); and Bangsawan Kebangsaan at Tyler Rollins Fine Art, New York (2011). In recent years, he has been pursuing possibilities of cross-industry art collaborations, of which Carbon Organika is the latest, following from Barang2 Jai with Kasa Suasa in 2021 and Ghost with Bell & Ross Asia at The Godown in 2019.
Jai’s works are in the collections of the National Art Gallery of Malaysia, PETRONAS Gallery, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Cultural Center of the Philippines, and other private, corporate, and institutional collections around the world.