白曰依山尽，
黃河入海流；
欲穷千里目，
更上一层楼。
飘逸的游丝时而生发成墨色的荡桨，漫长的线条在不规则的律动中张扬著一种极富动感的旋律，彷佛以水墨在纸上歌唱抒发情感。一气呵成，唱一首歌。
书画家王嘉堃的书艺个展「歌」(Sing A Song) 以自己独有的书写风格，一种亦书亦画的创作，体现了他的创作是具有当代特色的水墨视觉艺术。
1996年毕业於马来西亚艺术学院纯美术系的王嘉堃，历廿余年书画生涯，不断致力於寻找中国书法和当代艺术之间的契合点。他的展览「歌」，包含了9幅的行草以及4幅的篆书，两种书体释放的气息气象显然不同，但同样是突破了书法与绘画之间的界线。
最见性情的行草，在王嘉堃的挥洒中打破行距的限制；线条时时交叉，墨晕时时叠合, 水墨和书道成了他登楼放歌抒怀的媒介。以9首写景抒情的唐诗为内容的一系列行草作品，其中一幅作品是重复书写唐朝诗人王之涣的《登鹳雀楼》。不过，它们线墨节奏、密疏、质感的不同却构成截然不同的空间神韵。换言之，王嘉堃以唐诗、以汉字为基础，让笔墨流淌出具有生命感以及音乐感的抽象山水画。
当观者以为欣赏「歌」的一系列作品时是无需辨识字迹，有著抽象艺术的感觉，王嘉堃却以一笔一划章法分明的篆书，书写他自己喜欢/想到的短句，书写马来西亚当代诗人温任平的粤语诗等。他让当下生活的语汇走入书法艺术，他用古老的汉字书体来表现当代内涵。传统对於王嘉堃来说，是养份，不是包袱。
於2021年1月16日至2月21日，王嘉堃在吉隆坡市中心的艺文空间The Zhongshan Building，The Back Room的展览「歌」，特邀观者前来呼应《登鹳雀楼》的精神哲理: 催人抛弃固步自封的浅见陋识，一同登高放眼，就此拓展出崭新的视觉联想。
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The Brush Sings
The white sun sets behind the mountains,
The Yellow River flows into the sea
To see a thousand-mile view
Ascend yet another storey.
Wang Zhihuan, Climbing Stork Tower
The ink spreads like floating hairs on rice paper and some merging to form dark, rolling paddles. The enduring lines move, unruly, expressing a dynamic rhythm, as if giving birth a melody and feeling on paper. A breath, a song.
Graduating from the Fine Arts Department of the Malaysian Institute of Art (MIA) in 1996, Ong Chia Koon has been immersed in the worlds of calligraphy and ink painting for more than two decades. Much of his career as an artist has been in a tireless search for the convergence between Chinese calligraphy and contemporary art. Sing A Song, consisting of 9 cursive scripts and 4 seal scripts, is a meditation on the brush: while the two kinds of calligraphy have distinct impressions, brought together they blur and break the boundaries between calligraphy and painting.
His solo exhibition Sing A Song is a display of this quest, a demonstration of his idiosyncratic style that is at once both calligraphy and painting. Like much of his previous work, it is a stroke between worlds, blending the age-old conventions of ink painting with a spark of the contemporary.
Lines bisect and intertwine, ink merges and melds. Oscillating, undulating, Ong Chia Koon’s brush sways with the most sentimental of curves to transgress upon the limitations of his art form. These expressions have become confession box and performance stage for his inner rhythm and deepest thoughts. Drawing from Tang Dynasty poems that depict the scenic and the lyrical, the artist has produced 9 artworks. Among them, one features Tang poet Wang Zhihuan’s epochal poem “Climbing Stork Tower”. In Ong Chia Koon’s hands, this literal act transforms the verses—the interpretation of density, rhythm, texture of each line, stroke, and ink drop constitute a particular affect. Indeed, each poem, each word serves as the foundation block to build an abstract landscape that almost trembles with musicality and life.
Perhaps it is convenient then, given the constant transgressions, to believe it matters not what is written, to write it all off in one stroke as ‘abstract art’ where words hold little meaning. Yet Ong Chia Koon is conscientious with his texts, painstakingly writing his favourite phrases such as Malaysian Wen Renping’s Cantonese poems (most active in the 1970s and 80s) in a clearly defined seal script. The parlance of current daily life is allowed to seep into the more ‘traditional’ style of calligraphy. In turn, ancient Chinese script is used to express contemporary thoughts and connotations. For the artist, when employed deftly, tradition is sustenance, not the burden of legacy.
This exhibition is an exhortation, a call for viewers to embody the spirit of “Climbing Stork Tower”: to cast off our shell of self-deception, to “ascend yet another storey”, to expand our horizons, to look ahead together at “a thousand-mile view”.
Text by Teoh Ming Wah / Translation in English by Ong Kar Jin
About the Artist
Ong Chia Koon is a calligraphy artist based in Kuala Lumpur. Graduating from the Fine Arts Department of the Malaysian Institute of Art in 1996, Chia Koon has been immersed in the worlds of calligraphy and ink painting for more than two decades, constantly striving to create work at the intersection between Chinese calligraphy and contemporary art. Whilst still a student, he was awarded first place at the Malaysian Open Calligraphy Competition in 1995 and 1997. Chia Koon has since exhibited both nationally and regionally, with his work being shown across Malaysia, Korea, Thailand, Taiwan and China. Choice exhibitions include the Busan Calligraphy Biennale (2007 & 2009), a solo at the Mind of Still Tianmei Art Gallery in Tianjin (2010) and the Sokko Gakkai Gallery in Kuala Lumpur (2012). In addition to calligraphy, Chia Koon has worked on pottery design in Yixing and Jingdezhen in China, painting performances, live music and art direction. This is his tenth solo exhibition since his first in 2004.
Chia Koon’s work has been informed by his close-knit relationship to the literary, drawing inspiration from sources as varied as Tang dynasty poetry as well as Malaysian Cantonese poems from the 1980s; as an artist he reflects both past and present as he pushes boundaries with bold brushstroke and his flirtations with the boundaries between calligraphy and painting. His latest exhibition at The Back Room, To Sing A Song, represents a convergence of many years of dedication—an expression of lyricality on ink and paper, a reflection of Chia Koon’s history and memories. In his own words: “Trying to untie the constraints of calligraphy lines is not about readability. Imitating the free fluctuation of music, I also want to push the possibility of calligraphy to another visual effect.” Old songs are sung new; new songs are sung old, singing life forever.