The Blue Lotus Asian arts and cultures magazine issue 54

Lotus The Blue

Foo Kwee Horng Ajay Sharma Qi Lei Hom Rith Josh Clayton Haren Thakur Poonam Kishor Jeffrey Say Seck Leong The Singh Twins Nhung Ha Simon Carter Melvyn King Chrissie Westgate issue no. 54 summer 2022

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Lotus The Blue

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Modern ‘Mod’ at West Mersea 2022, Martin Bradley

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contents p6

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A quick word

Editor’s comments

Foo Kwee Horng

Cambodia countryside

Ajay Sharma

Realms of Journey within and beyond

Qi Lei

Chinese artist

Hom Rith

Art from Cambodia

Josh Claytom

Short story from Cambodia, ‘Play stupid games’

Poonam Kishor

Indian artist Haren Thakur

Jeffrey Say Seck Leong Battle for Chittoor ....

Go Block Vol 5

Printworks from Malaysia

Cover art: Indigo:The Colour of India, The Singh Twins, 2018

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The Singh Twins Slaves to Fashion

Nhung Ha

Vietnamese artist in Britain

Life with art

Benton End and the East Anglian School....

Simon Carter

East Anglian artist and curator

Melvyn King Kontainerama

Chrissie Westgate

Whispering Shores island photography

Going bananas Cuisine

Lotus The Blue

ISSN 2754-9151 • NO. 54 • SUMMER ISSUE • 2022 • THE BLUE LOTUS Published quarterly by The Blue Lotus Publishing (M.A.Bradley), Colchester, Essex, England, UK. © 2022 M.A.Bradley. All rights reserved.

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Lotus The Blue

a quick word “SUMER IS ICUMEN IN” (Sing cuccu) With this issue begins a new Blue Lotus initiative, called East to East. It brings together art and artists from Asia (and its disapora) with creatives from England’s East Anglia. It’s a nod towards a globalisation of art, its histories, and of sharing.

It’s one full year since I left Asia and returned to East Anglia and, in that spirit of co-operation, of spiritual togetherness, The Blue Lotus offers its ‘hand’ to new friends and fresh collaborations across the globe.

Submissions are encouraged to be sent to martinabradley@gmail.com Take care and stay safe for Covid 19 and its variants are still with us.

Martin

(Martin A Bradley, Founding Editor)

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Battle of the ‘Mods’ at West Mersea, Martin Bradley, 2022

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Foo Kwee Horng Chinese Singaporean artist Foo Kwee Horng once more travelled to Cambodia to capture the countryside. In his studio he painted “to the captivating voice of Ros Serey Sothea” (Queen with the Golden Voice) and to the whiff of turps.

‘The Cambodian countryside series was my attempt in painting what I call “pure landscapes”, something which I don’t get to see in Singapore. Vast stretches of land (or rivers) without man-made structures in sight.

Yet the demarcation of land plots, salt fields, the moats and the Barays were unquestionably human interventions. Somehow they seemed to have blended into the Cambodian landscapes, perhaps an indication that man’s interference with mother nature need not result in something ostentatious and vulgar. Likewise, is a square format instead of the usual horizontal landscape format a contemporary interference which robs how a landscape painting ought to be shown and seen?” Foo Kwee Horng.

Cambodian countryside No.3

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Approaching the South Gate, Angkor Thom

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Cambodian countryside series, no.5

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Cambodian countryside No.2

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Cambodian countryside series, no.3 (view from Phnom Krom)

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Cambodian countryside series, no. 1

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Buland Darwaza, Fatehpur Sikri, Agra

A few days ago, I had a dream. In my dream my cousin was getting married (she, in reality, had gotten married almost three decades ago). The house was full of guests. It seemed to be my uncle’s house that appeared to evoke a mixture of the memories I carry within me of my grandparent’s house and my uncle’s house. Among the guests, my (dead) mother was there, very well dressed for the occasion. My father was also there, well dressed. My mother and father hugged each other. My aunt (my mother’s sister, whose daughter was getting married) was also there – she had passed away a week ago. The ritual of the marriage was going on. Before I realised, suddenly, the ceremony was over. Astonished, I said “how come the marriage got over so soon, I haven’t yet taken any pictures of it……” The other guests told me that the ceremony was already finished, but in the dream I neither saw my cousin nor her husband. What I saw was a group of seated women surrounding my dead mother and aunt (who were alive in the dream). While my aunt and mother had been talking to each other lying on a bed sheet, suddenly those women started wrapping up the bed sheet as they kept saying my mother and aunt were actually dead. In the dream at times I saw them both talking to each other and at times I saw them motionless. Then I ran to my elder sister and told her that though we know that mother is dead, I had just seen her talking to our aunt. I kept asking her in the dream to tell me the truth, is my mother actually dead or alive?

When I narrated what I dreamt to my elder sister the next day, she warned me and said this ominous dream would soon bring some misfortune.

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Realms of Journey: Within and Beyond

By Ajay Sharma Journeys had been more of a mental experience than physical during my childhood. I have travelled more through stories told by my aunt and their family, who were my immediate neighbours and with whom we shared a special bond. This aunt described to us the places they had travelled – telling us about Kolkata- its New Market, the Howrah Bridge, river Ganges, launches, steamers and boats running in its waters, the Alipore zoo, the Botanical Garden, the shops that sold mouthwatering sweets there and many such things. We had heard about these places with awe and had dreamt of visiting Kolkata one day. I come from Kharagpur and Kolkata is just a three hour long journey by train from my hometown. Still, we never got to visit this city that had created such a magical picture in my mind through my aunt’s stories until I reached the 7th or 8th standard, when my music teacher started taking us to the Akashvani Bhavan to participate in children’s music programmes and competitions. Even during these several visits to the place, I was never taken to the Alipore zoo or the famous Botanical Garden in Shibpur, about which I had heard so much from my neighbours. Even today, I have never had the opportunity to visit these places!

Having been born and brought up in a small town in West Bengal, my childhood was rather devoid of travels to tourist spots and other such places of scenic beauty, even though some of these were very close to where we lived. It was through my neighbours’ stories in my childhood that I had travelled to Puri, the Jagannath temple, the roaring sea of Odisha, through the photographs and picture postcards they showed me I had travelled to Darjeeling, the Tiger Hill, Kanchanjunga, the Taj Mahal, the Red fort, its “Light & Sound” show, the Qutub Minar, the Humayun’s tomb – through their eyes I had seen these places they had visited in Delhi! My aunt and her family, loved us so much, that they

never forgot to bring back souvenirs for us when they returned from their travels. Every Durga Puja vacation, our neighbours would travel to hill stations and other tourist places in various parts of India bringing back souvenirs, picture postcards and stories of the places they visited and I as a little child listened to the stories they told and looked at the pictures they had taken of these places with awe. When they had come back from Agra, they gifted me a small milk white Taj Mahal encased in a glass box with lights. I had preserved it very carefully for years together in my house at Kharagpur.

Perhaps my father didn’t have the time or couldn’t afford the expenses of such travels in those days. All that we did during my childhood vacations were those several trips to our native place in Bihar, to attend weddings of my cousins or to mourn my Nana’s (maternal grandfather) death, whom I don’t remember seeing at all!

The first time I had a chance to make a long journey for several days by bus was to the northern part of India that perhaps began from Bodhgaya and ended at the Dal Lake in Srinagar, when I was in the second standard in school in 1979.

At the age of 51, in 2022, memories of that long journey have completely faded, though I remember names of some of the places we visited during that trip. This happened during the Durga Puja vacation when the staff of IIT Kharagpur (my father was employed there in the Electrical engineering department) were provided with an allowance to take their families out on vacation.

Such tours were called LTC tours.

We packed our bags, pots and pans and basic dry ration for cooking. An uncle took the whole responsibility of booking a bus and my parents with my siblings along with our neighbours 21

started our journey to North India.

and admire them. For many years they remained intact in this showcase and What we saw in our first destination at Bodhgaya gradually started withering with time. were two gigantic feet carved in stone and we were told these are the real feet of Lord Buddha. Him being an amateur, many of the I remember also seeing a pipal tree and being photographs my father had taken were told Lord Buddha attained enlightenment under blurred and out of focus. Some were this tree. also very dark. Still, we preserved these memories in our family album and often In Delhi, we spent a night at the Bharatseva looked at them eagerly. This album Ashram and I faintly remember the taste of the was carefully locked and protected in Bengali style cauliflower curry I had eaten. I also a Godrej ‘Almirah’ for years. Me and remember two gigantic elephants in stone that my siblings would sometimes take it I had liked very much. I remember the gushing out and get nostalgic. Gradually, the water of the Ganges in Haridwar (where I had photographs started chipping off from taken a bath), the shimmer of the Golden temple the album and mysteriously got lost. The in Amritsar and the delicious halwa prashad I last few that remained I have brought had eaten, loaded with ghee. back to Baroda with me lately. Now the pages of that album are empty lying in We had also visited the Jallianwala Bagh where some corner of my home in West Bengal. my father had clicked a photograph of me and Preserving memories is difficult, they my brother in front of the memorial with his fade with time!

Click -3 camera he had carried to take snapshots.

When I joined the Faculty of Fine Arts Then I vaguely remember the Dal Lake in to study painting in Baroda in 1991, Srinagar, the house boats and shikaras, the we were taken for study tours every Char Chinar garden we had visited. That’s all I year. During these study tours we were recollect from this long trip I had been on. My taken to Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Dilwara Jain father took several photographs of important temple in Mount Abu, Sashangir, Ajanta places and monuments, our family and friends & Ellora, Saputara, Kutch, Bhuj, Anjar to chronicle this trip. Later these were printed in and Diu. These were memorable trips black & white in tiny sizes and carefully pasted during my college days when I saw the in an album perhaps by my elder sisters. sea and its roaring waves for the first time in my life. It was a thrilling experience.

We brought back souvenirs and walnuts from Water attracts me a lot. Though I can’t Kashmir that we relished for days- putting them swim, I don’t like to stay away from the between the door and its hinges and breaking sea or rivers. If the water is not too deep, their hard shells! A set of colourful birds made of I don’t waste any time and just plunge plaster of Paris (that looked very natural) and a into it! I have been warned by people wooden deer with real fur and glowing eyes that to be cautious and yes, when in water, I I had forced my father to buy me from Delhi and definitely take care of myself. During my Haridwar were my prized possessions from this journeys to these places, I saw the desert trip. I had carefully kept them along with other in Jaisalmer for the first time in my life. toys in our wooden showcase with glass doors. The sand dunes were so fascinating and Every now and then I used to take them out the camel ride experience is still fresh in

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Unidentified monument

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Birla Temple New Delhi

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my mind. I was just in my early 20s and it was so much fun to visit these places – the Ajanta caves, the sleeping Buddha and the gigantic sculptures in Ellora- “Ravan shaking mount Kailash” in the Kailashnath temple, the Gajalakshmi and seeing the white salt desert in the Runn of Kutch (about which I had read in my school English textbook in a story by KN Daruwala back in the 80s titled ‘Love Across the Salt Desert’) in front of my eyes was completely unbelievable. Those days, having a camera was a luxury and not being from a privileged lot, all I could do was to chronicle these visits in my sketch books or fragmentally write about them in my diary and when both of these activities exhausted me, all I did was to store them in my memory! Apart from these study tours, back in the early 90s, a trip with my college classmates to Udaipur was also a memorable one and coming back to Baroda I had executed a series of paintings fantasizing the beauty of its landscape.

there, I had recurring dreams of UK and London.

I wanted to visit that place. Even during my college days I had a strong desire to study at the Royal College of Art in London and finally, in 1997, I got admission there as well. But, due to lack of funds and sponsorship I couldn’t study there.

My dream of visiting the UK was finally realised after six years. I was completely thrilled at that time even though I didn’t have any idea of how my stay there would be.

I was sitting in the airplane for the first time, I had dropped my boarding pass in the airport and luckily the lady whose luggage I had denied to carry till the airplane (as I had strict instructions from my sister not to carry someone else’s luggage, lest I be suspected to be a drug dealer or smuggler) gave it to me saying “you have dropped your boarding pass” and in a hurry I almost snatched it from her hand! All the I have known people who travel to tourist places formalities I was supposed to do in the airport several times in a year and chill out. I don’t were completely new to me; I had never done belong to that lot. These days, due to the social these before. media I see on Facebook and Instagram posts of my friends visiting and chilling out at places of I was nervous and in a hurry to just sit in the scenic beauty very frequently: people relaxing in airplane and fly to another world as soon as swimming pools in exotic hotels, eating all kinds possible. I didn’t know how to fasten the seat of food, chilling out in snow-clad mountains in belt and asked the girl sitting next to me to help the month of December. My life is rather boring me with it. My sister had instructed me to ask for and devoid of such frequent trips to places of a window seat and fortunately, I got one. Within scenic beauty. I have also come across posts of eight hours I was transported into a completely people going to Sri Lanka for their honeymoon different world, I couldn’t believe my eyes! even during these Covid times. My niece had her honeymoon in the backwaters of Kerala. I didn’t In 2017, I agreed to be part of an art camp in have any honeymoon at all. I never took my Manipur only to relish the scenic beauty of the wife to any exotic place to celebrate this special place. I didn’t want to miss this opportunity as I occasion! felt perhaps it could be the only trip to Manipur in my life. For that I paid the price as well. In order The trips I remember from 2000 onwards were to reach Manipur first I had to go to Guwahati in mostly professional trips to cities – visiting art Assam. There’s just one weekly train from Baroda shows, art galleries and attending just a handful to Guwahati. My train ticket was not confirmed of art camps I was invited to. I really can’t afford till the last moment. I couldn’t wait for another the luxury of frequently visiting exotic places, week as I would miss the camp. Neither could basking in the sun wearing my hat and shorts, I afford a flight ticket. So I decided to board the submerged in a swimming pool of sea green same train on the particular day I had to travel. water, sipping my cocktail and eating exotic I got up in the general compartment that was foods! Forget about foreign trips on my own completely jam packed, not realizing that this expenses. Though I was lucky enough to visit would be one of the most torturous journeys of the UK in 2004 and stay there for six months. my life. For three days I almost completely kept This trip was fully sponsored by my sister who standing in the train, unable to use the wash lives there. Ever since she left India and settled room. It was one of the toughest journeys I had 26

ever experienced and the most annoying as well.

With not much food and water, I travelled in the train as it took me across the states of UP, Bihar, West Bengal and finally to Assam. The people in the compartment sat and stood still inside while more and more people poured into the crowd. My mobile’s charge was drained, with no communication and fatigued, I continued this journey only to see the scenic beauty of Manipur!

This torturous journey never seemed to end, I felt claustrophobic, nauseated, hungry, irritated and angry inside. I finally reached Guwahati after three full days!

inside.

After my mother passed away, my father moved to stay with my brother in Jamshedpur, occasionally visiting our house in Kharagpur.

For the last few years, my father has been having mental and physical health issues. His fragile body and unpredictable mind needs to be taken care of. We first reached my elder sister’s home in Jamshedpur, two days prior to Diwali. We had already planned our journey by booking tickets for the places we had decided to visit during the vacation. Suddenly, my younger sister instructs me to take my father from Jamshedpur The only journey I have been making over the to Kharagpur as he is all ready with his luggage years religiously since my college days is to adamant to go back to Kharagpur. meet my parents and relatives during vacations.

Every vacation, I would board the Howrah- We book a cab and with my father leave for Ahmedabad express from Baroda to reach my Kharagpur, halting midway for some tea and hometown Kharagpur in West Bengal. During snacks. This was the first time I was visiting my stay there, I usually visit my sister and home after my mother had passed away. The relatives in Jamshedpur. If I have the time I also house looked empty- the big bed in the living visit friends in Kolkata for a day or two. I have room had been dismantled and removed, the T.V never liked Kolkata, though it’s a heart throb of and dining table were also not there. All of these many. have been taken to Jamshedpur. The kitchen had become almost non-functional. Only the gas For me Kolkata is a labyrinth where I get lost cylinder and the gas stove were there. The grocery and trapped easily. I cannot find my destinations shelves were empty. The masala and spice jars (Now please don’t tell me that in this age of Google were missing. The house smelled of dampness maps and Google locations it’s very simple. Just and emptiness. In the front room beside the sofa, stop preaching to me). It’s a disgusting feeling. I on a stool, was my mother’s photograph. The still continue to visit my hometown, Kharagpur, showcase in which I used to keep showpieces my relatives in Jamshedpur, and my friends in and toys stood empty in a corner of the room.

Kolkata during my vacations. Though now, in Under the bed I saw fragments of showpieces addition, I also visit my in-laws in Murshidabad that were very dear to me once. district.

I realised it’s time to let go of things, we cannot Since 2020 this journey has also taken a back keep holding our loved ones close to our hearts seat because of the Covid 19 pandemic and the forever. Throughout the night I couldn’t sleep, lockdowns. I also couldn’t attend my mother’s I felt some kind of discomfort as this was the funeral because of this. The ‘Delta variant’ killed first time I stepped into that house ever since my thousands of people in the second Covid 19 wave. mother passed away. I got some sleep only by In this situation, I could do nothing but stay in early morning. When I woke up the next day, late Baroda with my family and take classes online in the morning, I saw two large fresh hibiscus by going to the University daily. By mid-2021, flowers that my father had plucked from our when things were slightly normal, we decided garden and placed by my mother’s photograph. to visit my home and my in-laws by taking some We had tea and some dry snacks. My father had risk. We both have completed our second dose some work in the bank. So we both left. The of vaccination. Though we were worried about same day, by the afternoon train, I had to go our little child. During my Diwali vacation we back to Jamshedpur. My sister had instructed me boarded the train with masks on our faces and to buy my father a walking stick as the old one sanitisers in our hands. I also took a large bottle was broken. So we went to Golbazar, the local of sanitiser that could be sprayed on the seats market, and I bought him a walking stick.

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Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar

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By the time we reached home there was barely any time left to catch my train. So, I skipped lunch and hastily put all my belongings in my backpack, and telling my father that I don’t have any time and I am leaving right now, keep well, I went to my mother’s photograph, knelt and started weeping like a child.

There was no time to devote to this emotion as well, so hastily I wiped my tears off and rushed to catch my train.

shifted there from the railway quarters where they used to live earlier. An idolmaker’s house is just beside their new house.

I visit him with my daughter and go live on Facebook while I chat with him and watch him make the idols. I take photographs of him and his workshop.

Throughout the day, he is busy with his son making idols of gods and goddesses.

We woke up early the day after Diwali and boarded our train from Just outside the door of my in-laws’ Jamshedpur to Kolkata. house, on the left side, is a puja pandal with an idol of goddess Kali. The next We reach my friend’s place by 2 pm, day in the evening my brother-in-law sanitize ourselves and our luggage takes me and my daughter to Jiaganj before entering the house. It’s a very to visit the major puja pandals. Some short but heartwarming visit. My friend of the idols here are 20 to 30 feet tall. and his family are very amused by my Many pandals have decorations on daughter. My friend cooks a delicious Covid 19 themes, though no one seems mushroom curry with coconut milk for to follow Covid rules at all! dinner.

People hardly wore masks. We also go Next day, in the afternoon, we leave to the famous Amaipara Kali temple for my in-laws’ house in Azimganj. where there is a huge crowd of Azimganj and Jiaganj are the twin cities devotees. A fair is going inside the on the either side of the Bhagirathi premises of the temple where there are River (though the locals call it Ganga) several stalls selling jewellery, items in Murshidabad district in West Bengal. for performing puja and various kinds of food.

By the ferry boat one can go from Azimganj to Jiaganj and vice versa The river Bhagarathi, which used to flow in ten minutes. These boats have the some distance away, is now just yards capacity to carry motorbikes and auto away from the Charbangla terracotta rickshaws apart from the passengers. temples that I had visited before the Usually people carry their bikes, pandemic. The Hazarduari Palace, cycles, auto rickshaws with them when formerly known as the Bara Kothi, is they go from either of these cities to located in Murshidabad, West Bengal, the other. This time when we landed on the campus of Kila Nizamat. It was here, it was the time of Kali puja that erected in the 19th century by architect is celebrated grandly. Every nook and Duncan Macleod during the reign of corner has a puja pandal during this Nawab Nazim Humayun Jah of Bihar, time.

Bengal, and Orissa (1824–1838) and is also a tourist destination.

My in-laws have built a house and

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During my previous visits to Azimganj, I had also visited this location. The palace museum is now the Archaeological Survey of India’s largest site museum (ASI). The royal family’s valuables are among the antiques on display at the palace museum, including a beautiful chandelier of the Durbar hall, which is the world’s second largest chandelier, after the one in Buckingham Palace.

Queen Victoria had presented this chandelier to the Nawab.

visible along with the landscape around. Later we climbed flights of steps that took us straight to the gigantic statue where people were busy excitingly taking selfies and photographs by the feet of the statue and in the open space between two colossal legs of it. The lush landscape, the river water and the dam looked more prominent from here.

While I was looking at all these – the statue, the landscape, the water, the dam and the crazy My most recent visit was to the Statue of Unity in crowd, I was constantly reminded of the pictures the Narmada Valley in Gujarat. Now the of the Narmada Bachao Andolan, the numerous tallest statue in the world, this statue of Sardar articles in the newspaper and magazines, the Vallabhbhai Patel, the ‘Iron man of India’ is 597 locals and the activists who struggled so hard to feet, facing the Sardar Sarovar Dam. stop the Sardar Saravor project as it was never in favour of the locals and humanity.

According to a survey, the daily average tourist footfall at Statue of Unity during November The locals were fished out of their homes as the 2019 reached 15,036, out pacing the Statue of dam water gushed flooding their houses. All Liberty. 89.8 km from the place I live in Baroda, this beauty and showbiz and the excited crowd we reached there by 12 pm. The fields beside the seemed to cover the carcass of a fierce past that road were white with cotton plants throughout the valley and its people had witnessed once! our journey.

Ajay Sharma is a visual artist based in Vadodara This was for the first time I saw such a dense and works as an Assistant Professor at the Parul vegetation of ripe cotton that never seemed to Institute of Fine Arts, Parul University (Vadodara). end. The areas around the Statue of Unity and A recipient of Lalit Kala Akademi scholarships, the Narmada valley have been developed under Sharma has exhibited his works widely in India and the Gujarat tourism project over the years that abroad. His areas of interest are music, cinema and attracted lots of tourists even in these Covid poetry. times.

Apart from the gigantic statue, there is river rafting, a cactus garden, a children’s park and many such attractions for the people. As the driver parks our cab in the parking, he points to the direction where there are buses that would drop us to the Statue of Unity destination. We board a bus and reach the place.

Within a landscape of hills and water, the statue stands tall, attracting tourists. People were posing at the perfect view point to take photographs and selfies. The Sardar Sarovar dam could be seen as we headed towards the statue. It was quite a long walk to reach the statue. By a lift, we climbed inside the statue till the chest of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. The inside has a corridor with grills through which the sardar sarovar dam was

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Azimganj, West Bengal

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Qi Lei Qi Lei is a Chines artist “Inspired by the ancient Chinese tradition of landscape painting as well as Matisse’s and Hockney’s vibrant palette, Qi Lei’s practice of complementary colours and sublime compositions capture the relationship between natural elements and man-made objects, mostly concealing the presence of humans. His paintings are created through soft brushstrokes and vivid colouring, conveying a sense of liveliness and freshness.

Qi Lei's work has been collected by Deji Art Museum (Nanjing), ARTMIA Foundation (Beijing), and Gome Art Foundation (Hong Kong). He has exhibited in different venues, including MoCA Shanghai, ARTMIA Foundation (Beijing) and Gome Art Foundation (Hong Kong)”.

Text from https://www.hua-gallery.com 32

Comfortably numb

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The Courtyard of the Bagan King Hotel

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Gardens on the Outskirts of Yangon

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Applying Your Fantasy III

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The white courtyard behind the crops

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The Guy Who Splits Coconuts

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The40swimming pool in summer

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ENTERTAINING CANC THE BUDDHIST WAY

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CER

Devamitra was born in Middlesbrough, England in 1948 where he spent the first nine years of his life, living in the back streets of a town still scarred by aerial bombardment, breathing its heavily polluted air. His unblemished record of academic failure closed off any possibility of university education, which proved fortunate. Three years at drama school were followed by almost four as a working actor, mostly in theatre, with increasing forays into television and filming. After a growing disillusionment with the acting world he sought answers to the deeper questions of life, encountered Buddhism and was ordained into the Triratna Buddhist Order in 1974; he has studied, practised and taught Buddhism ever since, principally in the West, but also extensively in India among the Dalits (oppressed classes). He has also frequently lectured at the Buddhist Library in Singapore. When he was diagnosed with a stage three cancer in late 2016 he knew that the greatest battle he faced was not with his body, but with his mind and it was then that he started writing about his experience and observations. Although viewed through a Buddhist lens, Entertaining Cancer, recently released by Windhorse Publications, is not a book about Buddhism, but about facing and transcending the harsher realities of human existence.

‘This is a remarkable book – honest, lucid, unflinching, funny and radical in its willingness to confront the facts of life and death.’ Maitreyabandhu, author of The Crumb Road and Yarn (Bloodaxe Books).

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‘I’m referring you for suspected prostate cancer…’

An urgent appointment: serious; she did not need to say so – it was evident in her manner and tone of voice. First the scans then the excruciating biopsy with the jocular urologist; a succession of female medical staff asking, with a hint of amusement, ‘Are you able to have erections?’ What can a man say? Embarrassing. A final scan to check whether or not the cancer had spread. Eleven weeks of uncertainty then, ‘It’s curable…’ And then the grind – four months of chemotherapy, two months of daily radiotherapy with thee years of energy sapping, osteoporosis-inducing hormone therapy – all of which guarantees nothing – though it may extend your life, possibly save it. Sounds awful, but it wasn’t; it focussed my mind. I relaxed into it; my mind was bright, I saw things more clearly, enjoyed the comedy of life, was moved by its tragedy – the trials and tribulations of other patients – the humour of it all; a challenge met with fortyfive years of Buddhist practise. I had never been so happy – I could see the ‘blossomest blossom’ and a book was forming in my mind, on my screen.

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Hom Rith Rith was born in 1986 in Kampot Province and spent his childhood watching the Buddhist temple painters inside his local pagoda. His fascination with their craft inspired him to pursue his dream of becoming an artist. He has created a successful career with his watercolors, mainly by painting the ancient temples of Angkor Wat and selling to tourists in Siem Reap.

Rith joined Open Studio Cambodia as a collaborating artist in 2019 seeking mentorship in expanding the conceptual side of his work, a collaborative environment, and reaching a broader audience. Rith also specializes in custom commissioned portraits from family, travel or pet photographs in watercolor and acrylic, as well as large-scale custom wall murals.

Text from Open Studio, Cambodia.

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Untitled

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Transformed

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Transformed: Motherhood

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Beneath

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One thousand miles

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Balance bridge

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https://www.amazon.com/Whispers-Mycelium-Dark-Fantasy

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short story

Play Stupid Games

By Josh Clayton

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othea pointed to the stone naga – the multi headed serpents that were common in the iconography of Cambodia – and began to explain. “When Vasuki, King of the Nagas was being used as a rope, Vishnu told the devas to hold the tail of the giant serpent, not the head, because-” I turned away and snapped another picture of the gates of Angkor Thom, once one of the grandest cities of the ancient world. That’s what I'd been told at least. A row of stone figures flanked each side of the causeway, their arms wrapped around the body of the stone serpentine creatures whose forward end fanned into seven different snake heads. With the cheap camera phone I'd grabbed when we landed, I tried to fit the whole scene inside the field of view. Annoyingly, the picture was spoiled by all the tourists around.

Sothea continued explaining mythology to the rest of the group. She was a good enough guide, but I found it hard to think anyone could care about a story that involved giant snakes and an ocean made of milk, let alone carve the entire scene out of stone. I tuned her out and looked up at the giant naga carving. Seven heads fanned out, each one with an open jaw full of teeth. On the beast’s back was a diamond pattern, while on its front every line of its ventral scales had been carefully chiselled from the stone – it was beautiful, and also a little scary. At one point it might have been painted in bright gold, green and red, but now it sat, dull, weathered, and grey. Unnervingly, the empty eyes seemed to follow me as I moved from side-to-side.

I stepped closer and was about to touch it when Sothea shouted, “Don't stand so close!” She came running over and pulled me around to

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the side. “The stonework on the nagas is very heavy, and the supports are damaged. Some of them have even cracked and fallen over recently.”

I put my hands up and moved to the side, peering closely at the stonework. Aside from a few small mushroom caps sticking out here and there it looked fairly sturdy. Still, while I would have chosen to be somewhere else in the world, I didn't plan on getting killed on this stupid cultural trip.

“Where are the broken ones? Will we see them?” one of the other guys in our group asked.

“Right now they have only fallen in one temple, which is now closed because people have been hurt going there. But the local authority is concerned that the stonework is deteriorating on all of the nagas and they may close another temple soon. So, please stand back. And no, we will not be going there.”

I turned and was about to walk back towards the van when the phone buzzed with a picture message from Heidi – the main reason I had bought the crappy thing.

Hey Cody! How’s it going? You shoulda ditched the cultural crap and come down to Cabo with us. The others are sleeping now so I need some company. The picture was her and a few other guys and girls sipping cocktails by the pool.

I lingered for a second on her smooth, visible curves and sighed. I would have given anything to skip out on this trip and go down to beach with them, but it was paid for by the school travel assistance program. Not my

choice, of course. My aunt had signed me up to the program, and apparently my financial situation was deemed a charity case now, so the school had picked me to come to Cambodia.

Even if I had gotten out of the school program, I could concede that I was never going to have the money to go to Cabo.

to do. And I did meet her in an after-school photography class, so...I texted back, Ok, photo competition it is. I'll get a picture with no one else around.

I sent her the picture I had taken and added, glad you’re having fun. Snooze fest here, all mythology and stories.

The idea had seemed straightforward enough.

We spent most of the day getting in and out of the van, alternating between the cool, dry, air-conditioned vehicle and the lush, humid, and sweaty jungle outside. At every turn there was another temple, intricately put together of red and grey stone and always adorned with a myriad of carvings. With so many temples on our route, I thought it would be pretty easy to find a good spot.

She quickly replied, Sorry to hear that. Sounds boooring! Can I help at all?

I smiled. Just the fact that she was talking to me – me, the weird new-ish kid without the years of friendships everyone else had – was something.

My phone buzzed again. You’re a photographer, I’m sure you can do something! If you want we can make it a little competition! I smiled, photographer was not the right word but I wasn’t going to complain.

I’m not sure I’m good enough for a competition...I replied.

The phone buzzed again. It’s just for fun.

We do mini competitions between us all the time. I’ll start. It came attached with a photo of her facing the waves as the sun hit her bare back. Her completely bare back. I quickly put the phone down, but thankfully no one was standing close.

Where did you take that? I asked, wondering where in Cabo she found a beach so empty.

About halfway across the beach. It was a fair trek but worth it. Your picture looked pretty cool if it wasn't for all the tourists.

I looked around the area as yet another minivan drove past and I shook my head. There was no way I was getting a picture without them. Not here anyway. But I wasn't about to give up – I had Heidi talking to me, Heidi!

Just being friends with her would change my life. I wouldn't be the weird loner any more, I'd be one of Heidi's friends. I smiled. Also, the competition might actually be something fun

She messaged back almost immediately – a simple smiley face.

And yet there were always people. Always someone stepping into view just as my finger hit the button. Always someone ruining the moment with their selfie. Half of the day had gone and I was no closer to getting something for the ‘competition’. In frustration I turned to Sothea while we took a break in the shade near an ancient wall.

“Is there any temple that doesn’t have people wandering around?”

She thought for a second. “Not really. Only the one that is closed because of damage.”

"Can temples even be closed?” I snorted. “I thought the roads were all public.”

“Sure, the roads are. They have to be because people live in the villages near here. My brother-in-law lives on the other side of the park. But they can be closed. I mean, all of them are closed at night.”

"The guards have to sit there all night?”

She frowned. "No, they go home too. But you are not allowed in and no one goes in at night.

It is dangerous. There are no lights, so you cannot see anything.”

"No one ever goes in to a temple at night?” I asked, incredulous.

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She paused for thought. “Well, sometimes people do. But they get in a lot of trouble when they get caught. And like I said, it is dangerous.

There are snakes, monkeys, spiders. You cannot see anything, so people can fall over easily on the rocks. And there are spirits.”

"Spirits?”

“Yes, bad spirits. A few weeks before, some of the authorities were doing restorations and they said they saw water spirits during the night. They left work very scared. I think some of them even quit. And some people who live there say that their dogs have been taken by the spirits at night.”

She led us along for a while, and I let her continue to tell me about the various spirits. I’d quickly noticed that the majority of Cambodians believed in all manner of supernatural entities.

"Why do you ask?” she eventually said, catching me off guard.

“Just curious.” I lied, while looking around on the map application of my phone to see where the closed off temple was. If there was anywhere that would be empty it would be that one. But it was hardly walking distance from where we were and the group would notice if I disappeared suddenly. Also it would be guarded, at least during the day.

I summarised the situation in a message to Heidi, along with the idea that had come to mind. I partially hoped she would tell me it was crazy and to think of something different, but there was no reply. I looked up the time in Mexico and put the phone away for a while.

Sothea led me back to the van, ready to return to the hotel. I wasn't going to complain. By this point the meticulous stone carvings of Hindu or Buddhist iconography had blended into one messy religion in my head, and the red, intricate brickwork that was a staple of the earlier temples looked exactly the same as the large, uneven grey sandstone blocks that were used in later builds. Plus the heat was getting to me.

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I sat back and considered an idea that had formed. What I had thought would be impossible seemed a lot simpler now. Sothea had said the guards went home at night, so all I needed to do was get there. That was easy enough – I could just call a moto-taxi and find somewhere to stop. It was a public road so I wouldn’t even be breaking any rules. At least, as far as the driver was concerned.

And judging by the temples so far, it was hardly like there were any barricades to the ancient ruins. I had imagined there would be turnstiles at the entrances, or even perhaps a scanner or booth, but the entrances to the temples just led straight off the main road. We quite literally pulled up, filed out of the cool van and walked into the ancient ruins. With the guards gone, I would be in and out without anyone knowing.

I nodded to myself as we drove through the jungle trails – this could work. As for the talk of spirits – well, that was just local superstition... right?

Back at the hotel, everyone had some free time to go their own ways, with people splitting off to go out for drinks or to a restaurant. I showered and slipped out to grab a cheap tripod for my evening excursion, and turned down some invitations to go out by saying I would probably get an early night's sleep. Then I sat by the pool to wait out the time.

My phone buzzed right on time and I looked down. That sounds easy! Easier than this picture was anyway. A few moments later it buzzed again, and I glanced around to make sure no one was looking before opening it.

Heidi was again facing the sea but...No tan lines for me! Came the accompanying message.

I gawked. Even for Heidi, and even on a secluded beach baring that much was brazen.

When are you off to get your amazing picture? she added.

In some small part of my brain I couldn’t believe I was doing this. Photography was hardly a passion – I’d just needed to take some kind of after school class to stop my aunt signing me up for something. It had been chance that Heidi had been there.

If there was ever a moment to change my mind

about what I was about to do, it was then. But I didn’t. I texted back, 8 PM.

Focusing on the ground to avoid tripping on the rough stones, I stepped forward.

She replied almost immediately. That is so badass! I would so join you if I was there! Just be careful of the police! That last picture got me in a lot of trouble, so make sure you've got some money handy to pay any fines.

As I reached the other side of the causeway, the sound of splashing caught my attention and I ducked against the rock. The splashing continued, accompanied by a strange gagging noise. Children playing? Not at this time of night, surely? Perhaps someone was fishing in the moat? I peeked out, peering around. It was hard to tell, but for a second I thought I saw a V-shaped wake moving across the water, disappearing into a clump of lotus flowers.

Another movement; this time just a monkey running away from the bank.

I didn’t have the money, but I was never coming back to this country. And my reputation would be forever changed when the story got out.

Ignoring more invites to various bars or restaurants for the evening from people in the group, along with a few people asking if I was feeling okay, I snuck out and called a moto-taxi.

Thankfully the moon was exceptionally bright, so I would be able to see something. After initially looking resistant, a hefty tip seemed to convince him and I jumped on the back of the bike to head off into the temples at night.

My heart was pounding, but I had him drop me near a small, roadside stand that in the day would sell fresh coconuts and iced coffee. It hadn't been difficult to find the location of the closed temple, and I had chosen this location so it was just a short walk.

After appearing to debate leaving me or not, the driver turned and drove off, and when he was out of sight I quickly ducked away from the road and power-walked to the entrance.

True to Sothea's word, there was nothing except a flimsy police-style cordon warning people to stay away. I ducked under and started across the trail, the jungle dark and oppressive.

Stopping at the stone causeway that led across the half-empty moat that surrounded the inner walls, I looked around.

I could see that the naga figures, which should have stood tall, now lay broken into multiple pieces on their sides. Nonetheless, under only the moonlight, the eyes seemed to bore into me, almost daring me to go ahead.

I looked down at the ground and shivered in the warm air. For a while I stood there, deliberating one last time. Think of Heidi, I told myself. Think of what this will do for you.

The sound of shouting drew my attention away.

"Cody?” It was a woman's voice. "Cody!?” it called again, closer this time.

I groaned as I realised exactly who it was: Sothea, our guide.

“What are you doing?” she cried, sharp, and angry, as I tried to back away into the inside of the temple. “Are you trying to get in trouble?” she demanded. I turned to run – perhaps I could pretend it hadn’t been me – but was blocked by rubble. The doorway to the inside of the temple had completely collapsed, and was now overgrown by mushroom caps. She quickly caught up.

“What, are you following me now?” I asked.

“No, some of the others in the group were worried about you. Then I was at my brotherin-law’s and he told me he just dropped some crazy tourist off in the middle of nowhere.

What are you doing here? Did I not tell you how dangerous it is? Did I not tell you people have been hurt here?”

I looked down, running the explanation through my head and wondering how to explain. I need a photograph of an empty temple because the story will impress the cool people, and help me make friends.

Somehow, I doubted that would be satisfactory, especially not in this country where trials were significantly more difficult. Instead I kept my mouth shut, staring at the ground.

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“Come. Let's go back before we both get in serious trouble.”

“One picture? Please? Just one?” I said.

Begrudgingly, she agreed, and headed towards the moat while I set up the tripod for a night picture. From the door frame, the shot would take in the causeway and moat, framed by the dark jungle beyond.

The shutter went off, and I barely glanced at it to make sure it was in focus and good enough, before hurrying to catch up with Sothea. No need to push my luck.

Suddenly she stopped and looked around, appearing very confused. “What happened to the nagas?” she asked.

I looked at the stone snakes that had been eyeing me when I got there. They were gone.

The whole fan of seven snake heads that made up the intricate stonework was completely gone, along with the rest of the stone that made up the snake’s body. Sothea stepped past me and started walking across the empty causeway, looking at both sides.

The stone had disappeared from the edge of the gate to the end of the causeway. Not broken, just...gone. Gone with nothing but a few mushroom caps sprouting from the empty spaces.

Sothea kept walking, and eventually turned and looked at me, completely lost, apparently no longer concerned with my disrespectful behaviour. For a moment there was silence. I considered what to say, and was about to open my mouth when there was a disturbance in the moat, followed by the strange gagging sound again.

Out of curiosity I looked at the picture that was last taken, just to prove the naga carvings had been there a moment ago. They were not. But something else was. Something I had not seen in the scramble to get the picture. Something that only showed up in the extremely overexposed photo. Something in the water.

Black, glistening beads sat atop seven distinct 64

and separate heads that joined to a single, serpentine body. And it was looking directly at us.

I grabbed Sothea and pulled her away from the moat and we hid behind a rock. I shoved the picture in her face so she could see it too and her eyes went wide.

“Vasuki?” she mumbled, but before I could tell her to elaborate, a shrill, piercing noise echoed around us, quickly followed by the sickly gagging and several loud splashes. Peering around, I could have sworn I saw something rising out of the water. Long. Slender. And searching for something. Then just as quickly as it came, the noise stopped, and the water was still.

I shuddered and looked at the guide. She was shaking too, her eyes darting about at every little sound that came out of the jungle.

“Sothea,” I whispered, “in the story about the giant snake-” “Vasuki,” she interrupted.

“Right, Vasuki. Why was it important to hold the tail?”

She gulped, but eventually regained her composure. “Well, in some versions of the story Vasuki spits fire.”

“Oh, great.”

“In other versions, he spits halahala, a poison that can destroy all of creation.”

“All of creation?” I repeated.

She nodded. “Maybe that is why the pets went missing?”

I shook my head and hugged myself in a futile gesture. She might be used to believing in spirits and the supernatural, but I certainly wasn’t, and giant snakes that spat worlddestroying poison seemed to lock up my brain. Nonetheless I knew what missing meant. Missing. Missing in the jungle. Missing in a temple that was closed to the public.

There weren’t many ways that could be

misinterpreted.

The sudden crunching of stone drew both of our attentions to the side, and we jumped up, sprinting behind another piece of ruined stone as the sound returned – an indescribable, painful noise that forced my hands into my temples. Sothea kept silent, but I broke, whimpering through the assault on my ears. As the sharp noise stopped, I opened my eyes to see – where was Sothea?

Its mouths opened wide, and black liquid dripped from its seven jaws. Then the noise began again.

From Whispers in the Mycelium: A Dark Fantasy Anthology, Wolf Grove Media, LLC (June 1, 2022). https://www.amazon.com/Whispers-Mycelium-Dark-Fantasy

I tried to duck around another piece of column, tripped and bit my tongue to avoid cursing, and looked out for her. The crunching noise drew closer, and my hairs stood on end as the sound of something sliding along the ground came back.

“Sothea?” I tried to whisper. I heard a noise – a frantically repeated phrase that I guessed was the Cambodian language – and I stumbled, tripped, fell, and clambered to the source.

A sudden whimper, and the gagging sound began again. When I got around the corner there was nothing but a pool of liquid on the floor. I gulped, cursing myself for everything.

My stupidity, my idiotic decision to break all the rules, my disrespect of where I was. And now Sothea had paid for it.

I broke down, sobbing quietly to myself, but the sudden sound of movement brought my hand over my own mouth. I looked about – the moat was ahead of me – I could make a last ditch effort to get across and try to get back to town.

Try to put everything behind me and never leave my home country again.

I sprinted, leaving behind the giant...thing...that had taken Sothea, and forced my legs to obey.

I made it half way across the bridge when I heard something rise from the water next to me.

I stopped and put my back to one of the stone figures, now with empty hands, and glanced back at the temple, where I could see the thing was moving around. A drop of liquid fell in front of me. And then another. And another. I turned, my eyes following enormous ventral scales upward until I was staring at the seven heads of another monstrous, serpentine naga in front of me.

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Haren Thakur

By Poonam Kishor

Born on 22nd February 1953 at Pathardih, Jharkhand, Thakur first began to pursue his passion for art at a very young age. His early work took inspiration from, and is still reflective of various elements of, nature.

He then went on to join the prestigious Kala Bhavan, Vishvabharti at Shantiniketan, West Bengal and finished his Diploma in Fine Arts with a Merit Scholarship in 1975.

He was greatly influenced by the art works of Rabindranath Tagore, and completed his education under the tutelage of eminent artists like Ramkinkar Baij, Binode Behari Mukherjee, Somnath Hore, Dinkar Kaushik, Sarbari Roy Choudhury, Gauri Bhanja(D/O Shilpaguru Acharya Nandlal Bose).

In 1976, he moved to Ranchi and found himself completely immersed in the study of tribal life and nature. He spent the next four decades nurturing his creative appetite by partaking in the culture and lifestyle of the tribal communities of Jharkhand.

His work encompasses different natural elements inspired by the serene surroundings of Jharkhand while depicting faith, harmony, simplicity and peace through colour form and the use of camouflaged tribal icons alongside contemporary blends.

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His work has explored several essential structural patterns of tribal art and fused its geometric sophistication with visual concepts culled from Egyptian wall paintings of the Thutmosis IV era. Thakur’s unique work is expressed mostly through mix-medium on Nepalese Rice Paper.

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"TREE" Always Holistic

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Waiting for customer

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SERENE SAGA. Haren Thakur artist’s note.

My sincere pursuit is to fathom the infinite in finite, ephemeral surroundings which is either based on my imagination or got a conduit when the unalloyed purity unfolded before my eyes in its pristine glory.

Our past history or the primitive civilisation is a treasure trove. The primitive period is not entirely barbaric. We need to gather the remnants of brilliance from the past. I profoundly believe the present aestheticism emanates from the primitive past. The representations of ghastly unnatural structures have overshadowed the primitive life force. The tree is a great communicator, shows love, empathy, bonhomie and camaraderie.

I give more importance to spontaneity, rhythm and flow rather than the outer sheen, sophistication and façade. This is just a small step to showcase my journey as an artist, being invoked by the internal yarning to quench my thirst for manifestation, to dabble with - canvas, art and splash of colour.

We the artists have nothing new to deliver since the great Creator had already showered us with His bounties – the nature. My pursuit is to delve in the past to grope for the hidden wealth and splash on the canvas. Mere tenets or theory / doctrine cannot interpret the creation rather the creation should expound the theory.

My voyage as an artist started when I joined Shantiniketan as a student, being blessed and honoured to have received the tutelage, guidance from the legendary, iconic sculptor Shri Ramkinkar and great stalwarts like S/Shri Somnath Hore, Sarbari Roychowdhury, Binod Bihari Mukherjee. The idyllic, sylvan surroundings of Shantiniketan coupled with the impact of the simplicity laced with the beauty of the Santhalis had have greatly influenced me, likewise the images were conjured.

Shantiniketan taught me to comprehend the varied emotions of a tree – love, zeal, passion, restlessness, subtleties which was furthered and enhanced over the years during my stay in Jharkhand (Ranchi).

As an artist my objective is to access the nature and the sapiens vis-à-vis their relations and the undercurrent of rhythm, coherence and the driving life-force that work eternally.

“How one form merges into the other with his robust stroke and becomes effervescent like the fizz popping out from a champagne bottle!!” - once a critic remarked on my exhibits.

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Joy of freedom

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The cow boy

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Landscape in the wider perspective

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Divine rocks

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Existence of life

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Battle For Chittoor: Storming the Last Hindu fortress in 1567

By Jeffrey Say Seck Leong In 1567, while the other Rajput kingdoms of northern India submitted to the Mogul Emperor Akbar, the Sesodias of Mewar made a defiant stand in the formidable fortress of Chittoor.

whose courage and determination enabled him to become master of a vast empire that covered almost two-thirds of the Indian subcontinent.

One of the greatest testaments to Akbar’s military and political skills was his subjugation he walls had been breached. The Mogul of the martial Rajput kingdoms. forces were closing in on the gallant Rajput defenders inside Chittoor Garh, the fort of The domain of Rajputana or Land of the Rajputs Chittoor. Suddenly, flames were seen rising up (in what is now the desert state of Rajasthan) in the air from three places inside the fort. The occupied the northwestern portion of India and courtiers of Akbar the Great, the Mogul emperor, had presented special difficulties for preceding gave various explanations for the fires. Then Muslim rulers, as well as the Moguls. The hostile Raja Bhagwant Das, a Rajput leader who had Rajput kingdoms lay across the routes that ran allied himself with the Moguls, said that the fires south from the principal Muslim centres of could only mean one thing. The johar–the Rajput Delhi and Agra and were uncomfortably close custom of burning their women to death in the to Dehli and Agra themselves. Mogul rulers also face of impending defeat–had been performed. feared that the independent Rajput kingdoms Now the Rajput warriors sallied forth to meet could provide a safe haven for rebels plotting the invaders in a desperate last stand with their against them. Furthermore, Rajputana bordered traditional cry of ‘death for all before dishonour. on Gujarat, an important centre of commerce It was Tuesday, February 23, 1568. For more than with western Asia and Europe. To Akbar and the four months, the Mogul army had undertaken Moguls, therefore, there were potentially huge a costly and gruelling siege of the fort, directed political and economic advantages to be gained personally by their commander in chief and by securing Rajputana. emperor, Akbar. Now the campaign had reached its apocalyptic climax.

The Rajputs (sons of kings) had begun to settle in northern and northwestern India after the Abu-al-Fath Jalal-ud-Din Muhammad Akbar breakup of the mighty Gupta empire in the late was born on October 15, 1542. His grandfather 5th century. They were probably descendants and the first of the Mogul emperors, Babur, was of Central Asian invaders who had contributed a Chaghatai Turk who came from an area in what to the fall of the Gupta dynasty. Others believe is now Uzbekistan in Central Asia–and was a that the Rajputs were the descendants of descendent of the Mongol conquerors Genghis the kshatriyas (warrior caste, the second tier of Khan and Tamerlane. Akbar became emperor the Hindu caste system), who had lived during at the age of 14 upon the death of his father, the Vedic period between 1500 and 500 bc, when Humayun, in 1556. In his nearly 50 years on the an Indo-European people from Iran, called the throne (1556­1605), Akbar proved to be a tolerant Aryans, settled in India. statesman, a shrewd administrator and an avid patron of the arts. He was also a strong-willed The Rajputs were governed by a chivalric individual and a brilliant military commander warrior’s code not unlike that of the knights of

T

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A mine explodes in 1567 during the siege of Chittoor from Aknarnama c. 1590 - c.1595 right panel

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A mine explodes in 1567 during the siege of Chittoor from Aknarnama c. 1590 - c.1595 left panel

medieval Europe. It emphasised compassion for defeated foes, generosity toward the helpless, fair play in battle, respect for women, and conduct of warfare by elegant forms and ceremonies. The Rajputs were renowned for their courage on the battlefield.

Their proud martial tradition and passion for war enabled the Rajputs to become the dominant power in northern India by the 9th century, but internecine conflicts led to the emergence of numerous petty kingdoms within their own domain. From time to time, the Rajputs would form confederacies to repel the Turko-Afghan armies that invaded India from the 8th century onward. Such unity tended to be only temporary, however, and their internal discord would ultimately prove to be their undoing.

The victory of Turkish forces from Afghanistan under Muhammad of Ghur over the Rajputs in the second battle of Tarain in 1192 firmly established a Muslim presence in northern India. Nevertheless, the Rajputs maintained their independence in Rajputana and remained a power to be reckoned with in northern India until the arrival of the Moguls in the 16th century.

Akbar fully realised that the Rajputs were tenacious opponents, so he adopted a shrewd policy that combined both military action and diplomacy. For instance, he married Hindu princesses and arranged similar marriages for his heirs. After he defeated a Rajput chieftain, Akbar would make him an ally rather than depose him. As long as they acknowledged Akbar’s suzerainty, paid tribute and supplied troops when required, the Rajput rulers were allowed to retain their territories. That policy of conciliation and compromise won a number of Rajput kingdoms over to Akbar’s side and further weakened whatever remained of Rajput unity. Even as they watched their brothers surrender their independence, however, the Sesodia Rajputs of Mewar refused to bow to Mogul authority.

recognized as the foremost among the 36 royal tribes of the Rajputs. The formidable fortresses of Chittoor and Ranthambhor, both in Mewar, were regarded as bastions of Rajput sovereignty and strength.

Mewar, however, had the misfortune of being ruled in 1567 by a weak and incompetent ruler, Rana Udai Singh II. Udai Singh’s defiance was one of the main reasons that Akbar marched against the Sesodias. Akbar also realised that without establishing his suzerainty over the dominion of the Sesodias, he could not hope to be the master of northern India. He was determined to capture the fort of Chittoor in particular, thereby setting an example so that no other fortress would dare to resist his army in future.

On October 20, 1567, Akbar arrived at the outskirts of Chittoor Garh and pitched camp. A ferocious thunderstorm greeted the Mogul army, as if to serve as an ominous warning against their undertaking. When the storm calmed and the sky cleared, the fortress of Chittoor became visible in the distance.

Chittoor was the capital of Mewar and had served as the stronghold of the Sesodias since 728. Chittoor was formerly called Chitrakut after Chitrang, a Rajput chieftain. Located in present central Rajasthan in northern India, 111 kilometers from Udaipur, Chittoor Garh (garh means fort) is the finest medieval Hindu fortification to survive in any state of completeness.

Chittoor was situated on a steep, isolated mass of rock that rose some 558 feet from the plain, and was 31Ž4 miles long and 1,200 yards wide in the center. On the summit of the rock stood Chittoor Garh. The principal approach to the fortress was from the southeast angle of the present-day location of the lower town (the town was built at the foot of the escarpment after the Sesodias abandoned the fort in 1568) by a steep road that ran for nearly a mile, then made two zigzag bends that were defended by seven massive gates. The The Sesodian clan was considered the most summit of the rock, which sloped inward on powerful and recalcitrant of the Rajputs, all sides, collected rainwater that filled several carrying the banner of Rajput independence tanks, ensuring an abundant water supply and zealously opposing the Muslim invaders. that added to the fort’s capacity to withstand a The Rana of Mewar (rana was a royal title, protracted siege. Unlike most forts in Rajputana, and rani was the female equivalent) was which only enclosed the residence of the clan’s 79

ruler, Chittoor Garh held a veritable city within its walls: magnificent palaces, temples, houses and markets. Some of the remains of Chittoor Garh can still be seen today.

The Mogul army included some 3,000 to 4,000 horsemen and 300 war elephants. The soldiers were armed with swords, lances, matchlocks, and bows and arrows. In addition, there were about 5,000 builders, carpenters, stonemasons, A 9th-century Hindu chronicle, the Khoman Rasa, sappers and smiths to construct siege engines described Chittoor Garh as the chief amongst and to mine the fort’s walls. eighty-four castles, renowned for strength… it is within the grasp of no foe. Formidable as Accompanied by his courtiers and surveyors, it was, Chittoor had, in fact, been sacked twice Akbar made a reconnaissance of his target and before by Muslim forces. It was first taken in ordered batteries to be set up at various strategic 1303 by the Delhi Sultan Alauddin Khalji and points around the fort. It took about a month was sacked again in 1535 by Bahadur Shah, the for the whole circumference of the fort to be sultan of Gujarat. On both occasions, the johar or invested. ritual death by immolation was performed when defeat seemed imminent, after which the Rajput There were three principal batteries, one of which warriors, having taken a vow of death, staged a was Akbar’s, located opposite the Lakhuta gate desperate final charge. Ironically, it was Akbar’s in the north. The second battery, under Shujaat father, Humayun, who intervened and restored Khan and other officers, and the third, under the Sesodias after the second sack. That enabled Asaf Khan and other officers, were emplaced at Udai Singh to become rana in 1541. unspecified locations. Meanwhile, Akbar sent his officers to devastate the Rana‘s territory, hoping When he got wind of the Mogul army’s approach, to find Udai Singh in the process, but they found Udai Singh fled to the relative safety of the no trace of the Rana. distant hills, after using scorched-earth tactics to devastate the countryside. When Akbar was The opening phase of battle began when some informed of the Rana‘s flight, he considered overzealous Mogul troops launched a reckless pursuing him but decided against it because direct assault upon the fort. Not surprisingly, of the distance involved and the inhospitable the Moguls’ arrows and bullets glanced off the terrain. surface of the walls and battlements, whereas those the garrison discharged exacted a heavy The Rana left the fort in command of two teenage toll on them.

Rajput princes, Jaimal and Patta, ages 15 and 16 respectively. Chittoor was defended by a garrison After that minor debacle, Akbar decided that of 8,000 warriors, supported by 40,000 peasants. strategic planning rather than reckless courage Several other Rajput clans and their chiefs were was what was needed if the fortress was to be also at the fort during this time. The garrison taken. Accordingly, the emperor adopted a twowas evidently prepared for a long siege, since it pronged strategy. One entailed mining the walls had a well-stocked supply of ammunition, grain of the fort in front of the royal battery, whereupon and other provisions. And the fort had plenty a party of selected Mogul troops would rush of firepower, including archers, a corps of crack into the fort as soon as the breach was made. musketeers and a number of artillery pieces.

While the sappers dug mines under the walls, stonemasons opened the way by removing When Akbar arrived at the summit of Chittoor obstacles with their iron tools. hill on October 21, 1567, he pitched his camp, which extended 10 miles to the northeast of the The other strategy called for the construction hill. The site of the camp was marked by a 30-foot of sabats, or covered passageways, an ingenious limestone pyramidal column, or tower, known siege contrivance that was peculiar to India. as Akbar’s lamp, which served as a beacon to A sabat was a sinuous sheltered passageway stragglers at night and denoted the imperial that was constructed out of gunshot range, with headquarters (such markers were a regular earthen walls on both sides and a roof of planks feature of Mogul camps of significant size). strongly fastened together and covered with rawhide. When a breach was made by mines, 80

Akbar shoots the Rajput commander from Aknarnama c. 1590 - c.1595

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The Jauhar of Rajput women from Aknarnama c. 1590 - c.1595

troops would rush in under the cover of the sabat.

Akbar ordered the construction of two sabats: one to be commenced from the royal battery and the other to be built in front of Shujaat Khan’s position.

the gunpowder of the mine that exploded first had been shorter than the other match, so the mines failed to discharge simultaneously).

Moguls and Rajputs alike, battling in the breach, were hurled into the air together, while others were crushed by falling debris. The blast was so powerful that limbs and stones were hurled a great distance from the fort. Mogul reinforcements and Rajput troops then engaged in a brief skirmish until the Rajputs succeeded in quickly repairing the demolished part of the wall. About 500 Mogul soldiers, including a significant number of noteworthy men, were killed, while a large number of Rajputs also perished. On the same day, another ill-timed mine exploded in front of Asaf Khan’s battery and claimed 30 more lives.

At the same time, in the emperor’s presence, an exceptionally large mortar was cast to demolish the walls of the fort. When the defenders became aware of this and saw that the Moguls were making daily progress toward the destruction of the fort, they sent out two representatives to Akbar to bargain for peace, offering to become subjects of his court and to send an annual tribute.

Several Mogul officers advised him to accept the offer, but Akbar was adamant: Nothing short of the Rana surrendering in person would persuade him to lift the siege. As they were unwilling–or perhaps unable–to deliver the rana, the Rajputs had no choice but to continue the defence of their Akbar viewed these botched undertakings as fort with renewed fervour. temporary setbacks that should serve to inspire even greater exertion and resolve on the part While the sabat in front of the royal battery was of the Moguls. To ensure that the assault on being constructed, artillerymen and marksmen the fort would continue unabated, he ordered inside the fort kept up such a fusillade that about the construction of the sabat in front of Shujatt 200 Mogul labourers were killed daily, even Khan’s battery to be speeded up. though they protected themselves with rawhide shields. The corpses were buried in the walls of The emperor also frequently visited the sabat in the sabat. But the workers were kept going by his sector and fired at the garrison from loopholes lavish gifts of gold and silver coins from the in the sabat. One day, Akbar saw that some of emperor–the amount of which was calculated his men were admiring the marksmanship according to the number of containers of earth of one of the musketeers of the fort when, at added to the sabat. The sabat opposite Akbar’s that very moment, a shot from that marksman position was soon completed near the fort. It hit Jalal Khan, one of Akbar’s attendants. was reported to be so extensive that 10 horsemen Akbar was reported to have said to his injured abreast could ride along it and so high that an attendant, Jalal Khan, that marksman does not elephant rider with his spear in his hand could show himself; if he would do so, I’d avenge pass under it. you. Although he could not see the marksman, Akbar took aim at the barrel of the musket that At the same time, two mines close to each other projected from a loophole. He fired but could not were brought to the wall of the fort and filled determine whether his shot had found its mark. with large quantities of gunpowder. A party of It was only later that Akbar learned that his shot fully armed and accoutred Mogul soldiers, noted had indeed killed the sharpshooter, who was for their bravery, stationed themselves near the identified as Ismail, head of the musketeers. wall, ready to rush in when it was breached.

On December 17, the gunpowder of both mines Akbar proved to be quite a marksman himself, was set to explode at the same time. One part killing many noted members of the garrison. But of the bastion was blown up, inflicting heavy the emperor also came close to losing his own casualties on the defenders. Unknown to the life on a few occasions. Once, a large cannonball Moguls, however, only one mine had exploded. that fell near Akbar killed 20 soldiers but left When the soldiers rushed toward the large him unscathed. On another occasion, a soldier breach and were about to enter, the second mine standing near Akbar was hit by a bullet, and the exploded (apparently, the match used to ignite emperor was saved from the same round only 83

by his coat of mail.

indeed found its target–none other than Jaimal.

The Rajputs, disheartened by the death of their When the second sabat was completed, the leader, had gone back to their homes to gather Mogul forces prepared to launch a full-scale their wives, children and property in preparation assault on the fort. The Mogul troops went about for the johar. As many as 300 women, including their operations with such vigour and intensity nine ranis and five princesses, and an unknown that for two nights and a day they had neither number of children perished in three houses that food nor sleep, inspired by the personal example served as fiery furnaces. of Akbar, who was supervising the operations and keeping up a fusillade upon the garrison Although the defences appeared to have been from the sabat. Special quarters had been erected abandoned, the Moguls decided to proceed for Akbar on top of the sabat, and the emperor cautiously. They took advantage of the lull in stayed there during this crucial period. the fighting to regroup in preparation for an organised assault on the fort. When the Mogul On the night of February 22, the Moguls attacked forces were massed, the soldiers entered the fort the fort from all sides and created several through several breaches. breaches in the walls. The Rajput warriors put up a stubborn resistance. At one point in the The Rajputs, meanwhile, had finished eating fighting, Prince Patta’s mother commanded Patta their last betel nuts together and donned their to don the saffron robe, which would indicate saffron robes. They then sallied forth to meet his desire to die for his gods and his country. their enemies and their destiny. Akbar, who was She also armed his young bride with a lance and watching the close hand-to-hand combat from accompanied her down the rock. The defenders atop the sabat, then ordered his war elephants to of Chittoor saw mother and daughter-in-law die be taken into the fort to join the onslaught. heroically, fighting side by side.

At dawn on February 23, the Mogul emperor, The Moguls had destroyed a large part of the accompanied by several thousand men, entered wall at the end of the sabat that faced the royal the fortress mounted on a majestic elephant. By battery. The defenders collected such combustible then the Rajputs had been routed. People were materials as muslin, wood, cotton and oil to fill fighting everywhere, and bodies lay in every the breach, intending to set fire to the heap when street, lane, passageway and bazaar. Some the Mogul troops approached to prevent them Rajputs died fighting in temples, while others from entering the fort. fought to the death in their own homes. Many Rajput warriors had made their last stand in Akbar was in a vantage point inside a specially the rana‘s house, from which they emerged in made gallery on top of the sabat at the time, twos and threes to die fighting. and he saw a man wearing a chieftain’s cuirass directing the proceedings at the breach. The Initially, only about 50 elephants entered the emperor took out a matchlock he had christened fort, but by the battle’s end, there were as many Sangram (Akbar was said to have killed a few as 300. The elephants did much damage, and a thousand birds and animals with this gun during few were singled out for special praise. One such his hunting trips). He then fired at the Rajput elephant, named Jangia, had its trunk cut off by a chief, but no one could be certain whether the Rajput’s sword. Despite the severe injury, Jangia, chieftain had been hit. who had killed 30 men before he was wounded, An hour had passed when Akbar received reports crushed another 15 before dying of his wounds. that the Rajputs had inexplicably abandoned their defences. At about that time, fire broke On another occasion, an elephant trampled a out in several places in the fort. Akbar’s Hindu Rajput, rolled him up in its trunk and brought adviser, Raja Bhagwan Das, told the Mogul him before Akbar. The mahout (elephant driver) emperor that the Rajputs must be performing said he did not know the man’s name, but he their custom of johar. appeared to be a leader, as a large number of warriors had fought around him. That leader It came to light later that Akbar’s shot had turned out to be the 16-year-old Patta.

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to the tomb of Khwaja Muiddin Chisti in Ajmer, The emperor also witnessed an act of Mogul about 120 miles from Chittoor. Akbar set out chivalry in the battle. A Rajput warrior had on his trek on February 28, 1568. In 1571, when challenged a Mogul soldier to combat when he built his new capital city of Fatehpur Sikri, another Mogul decided to come to his aid. But 24 miles west of the old capital of Agra, Akbar the Mogul soldier waved his compatriot away, erected statues of Jaimal and Patta in front of one saying that it was against the rules of chivalry of his gates–as much a testament to the merits of to render assistance when an opponent had his gallant foes as to his great conquest. challenged him. The Mogul then single-handedly disposed of the Rajput.

This article was written by Jeffrey Say Seck Leong and originally appeared in the February Nearly 30,000 Rajputs were killed, the majority 1999 issue of Military History magazine. mercilessly slaughtered when Akbar ordered a general massacre of the population. This uncharacteristic barbarity was to remain the only major blemish on the emperor’s otherwise Jeffrey Say Seck Leong is an art historian specialising enlightened reign. The peasantry had evidently in Singapore and Southeast Asian art history. incurred Akbar’s wrath when they participated Importantly, Jeffrey undertook pioneering research as auxiliaries in the fighting. Akbar also may have and study of the history of sculpture in pre-and postbeen exasperated by the fierce resistance put up war Singapore. An author of numerous essays on by the tenacious Rajput defenders. Many, mostly art, his seminal co-edited work Histories, Practices, peasants, were made prisoners; few Rajput Interventions: A Reader in Singapore Contemporary warriors survived to, in the words of their creed, Art (2016) remains a critical anthology for researchers, stain the yellow mantle by inglorious surrender. curators and students on Singapore art to date.

The Mogul troops also engaged in systematic pillaging of the palaces, temples and residences.

Akbar had particularly wanted to punish the musketeers who had exacted such a heavy toll on his troops when the sabats were being built.

Apparently, they had managed to escape by a clever stratagem. In the confusion of battle, they tied up their wives and masqueraded as Mogul soldiers escorting prisoners of war. Mogul losses may have been small, but it is hard to believe the claims of Mogul sources of the time that only one soldier, Zarb Ali Tuwaci, had died in the fighting that followed the final storming of the fort.

After he fled from Chittoor, Udai Singh II and his small band of followers took refuge among aboriginal hill tribes and later founded the city of Udaipur, which was named after him. He died four years after the fall of Chittoor at the age of 42. In 1616, Akbar’s son and successor, Jahangir, handed Chittoor back to the Sesodias, but they had already comfortably settled at Udaipur.

Jahangir would not–or dared not–allow them to rebuild the defences of the fortress, and Chittoor was abandoned.

Akbar had known that Chittoor would be difficult to take. If his efforts were successful, he had planned to make a thanksgiving pilgrimage 85

The term ‘GO BLOCK’ can be described as a testament to the innovation of alternative printmaking that urges its practitioners to not only resort to the traditional method of doing prints. The phrase can also be seen as a cheer to celebrate alternative printmaking. GO BLOCK is a collective movement of several local printmakers who strive to push further the development of its discipline to another level. GO BLOCK is more than just a movement – it is an idea that is fluid in terms of its movement and dynamism of its practice.

AGNES LAU AWANG DAMIT AHMAD FADLI MOKHTAR FAIZAL SUHIF JUHARI SAID PANGROK SULAP SAMSUDIN WAHAB and SHAHRUL JAMILI 86

Dinihari, Juhari Said

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Bila pungguk rindukan matahari, Juhari Said

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G13 Gallery is pleased to present GO BLOCK VOL 5: CONTEMPORARY EXPANDED PRINTMAKING RESIDENCY PROJECT, a group exhibition by AGNES LAU, AWANG DAMIT AHMAD, FADLI MOKHTAR, FAIZAL SUHIF, JUHARI SAID, PANGROK SULAP, SAMSUDIN WAHAB and SHAHRUL JAMILI. Senior and young printmakers venture into new areas and realms of printmaking in this new series of works. Besides showing the results of the GO BLOCK Printmaking Residency Project, this exhibition aims to reintroduce innovative ways of printmaking art to the audience.

The term ‘GO BLOCK’ can be described as a testament to the innovation of alternative printmaking that urges its practitioners to not only resort to the traditional method of doing prints. The phrase can also be seen as a cheer to celebrate alternative printmaking. GO BLOCK is a collective movement of several local printmakers who strive to push further the development of its discipline to another level. GO BLOCK is more than just a movement – it is an idea that is fluid in terms of its movement and dynamism of its practice.

Kelana Square, GL13, Ground Floor Block B, Jalan SS 7/26, 47301 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia info@g13gallery.com.

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Bentukan-bentukan Alami, Fadli Mokhtar

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Formasi Alami, Fadli Mokhtar

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Fragile (Rapuh), Pangrok Sulap

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Time Monument, Fadli Mokhtar

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Situasi Bawah Pokok, Fadli Mokhtar

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Pucuk Penawar, Faizal Suhif

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Monsoon December III , Awang Damit Ahmad

Monsoon December I, Awang Damit Ahmad

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Turn of Events, Shahrul Jamili

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EAST TO EAST

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E

ast to East represents a fresh direction for The Blue Lotus magazine.Taking Asian art and artists to the world and bringing the world right back to Asia has long been the magazine’s raison d'être.This, coupled by the fact that The Blue Lotus is published from Britain, always begged the question concerning the near absence of art from the world finding its way ‘right back to Asia’, as promised in the spiel.

East to East points to a new inclusiveness of art from Asia, people and cultures of the Asian diaspora as well as those artists from or living in the region of Britain called East Anglia (Norfolk and Suffolk, and parts of Essex and Cambridgeshire), which is where The Blue Lotus magazine has its home (in a 16th century cottage by the Blackwater Estuary).

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Firstsite, Lewis Gardens, High Street, Colchester, Essex, CO1 1JH

01206 713 700, info@firstsite.uk

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Ancient roots: The wonder that was India

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Adoration of profit

SLAVES OF FASHION The Singh Twins

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laves of Fashion: The Singh Twins. A showcase of artworks by the internationally renowned artists, which focus on the relationship between Britain and India, hidden details of Europe’s colonial past and its legacies, including current debates around ethical trade, responsible consumerism and decolonisation and racism.

Primarily known for their hand-painted work in a modern development of the Indian miniature tradition, The Singh Twins’ latest work combines traditional hand-painting techniques with historical archival material and digitally created imagery.

symbolic portraits of historical figures to reveal the full intricacy of their design and the eclectic, detailed, symbolic and narrative style for which The Singh Twins are renowned.

For example, Indigo: The Colour of India, features an image of the Mughal Queen Mumtaz Mahal wearing jeans, in a detailed life-size portrait that tells the story of Indigo, which was used in India as a fabric dye for thousands of years. Known as ‘blue gold’ (currency for buying slaves), it was highly valuable and prized for its rich, deep shade and colour-fast qualities. Today, one might associate denims with western fashion, but The Singh Twins challenge that notion, backing it with extensive research and tracing the roots of “Dungaree” (another term for Denims) to “Dongri” village in Mumbai where 16th-century Portuguese sailors had first used the coarse material as pants and popularised them.

The exhibition features two significant bodies of work from their Slaves of Fashion series produced over the past five years. This is supported by a wealth of material that documents the artists’ process from an archive of original historical objects and documents which have inspired the work on display, to original drawings, time lapse The exhibition also explores present-day debates video of work in progress and three artist films. about industry and globalisation, fair labour and equal pay; pollution and climate change; Included are eleven digital fabric artworks corporate politics and business ethics driven displayed on lightboxes, with each one by a number of artworks on paper. The works highlighting a different theme relating to India’s include instantly recognisable figures such as textile industry. Each work features life-size Donald Trump (Get Your Knee off Our Necks),

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Boris Johnson and Angela Merkel (Fighting for India 2.0), Theresa May (Colossus of Woes), Tony Blair and George W Bush (Partners in Crime: Deception and Lies).

While each work in the show highlights a different theme relating to the colonial history of India’s textile industry, collectively they reveal not only the beauty, and craftsmanship of Indian fabrics, but also the human cost of luxury goods and the global politics of trade past and present.

Director & CEO says, “This is an excellent opportunity to showcase the work of internationally renowned artists The Singh Twins at Firstsite.

Their artwork focuses on key issues facing our world today and highlights the need for change. ECDP have developed a strong partnership with Firstsite over the years and through this exhibition we are keen to develop a more collaborative approach for joint working.’’

For more information follow @firstsite on Twitter, @firstsitecolchester on A version of this exhibition was first Instagram, like the Firstsite Colchester seen at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool Facebook page or visit firstsite.uk in 2018, but since then the Twins have added more exhibits, including new work made in lockdown as part of Grayson’s Art Club. (Channel 4).

The Twins say, “If you care about the environment and you care about human rights, then you should really care about what you put in your shopping basket too, and that’s partly what the message of these works is, but it’s also about showing how we are all connected through our colonial past and how our understanding of global narratives around Empire can help us to see ourselves and the world around us in a new light.”

Sally Shaw MBE, Director of Firstsite says “We’re really excited to be able to host this vast, colourful exhibition from The Singh Twins that poses such important questions about equity, sustainability and the climate crisis. This exhibition offers us an opportunity to explore wider societal issues through art and we are hoping this show will fire the imagination, raise awareness of hidden histories and help us all think creatively about how we as a community can address these issues.”

The exhibition is supported by the Essex Cultural Diversity Project (ECDP), Indi Sandhu ECDP Creative 108

Indigo: The Colour of India

Trade Wars

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Jallianwala: Repression and retribution

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The Singh Twins (Amrit Singh MBE and Rabindra Kaur Singh MBE) are internationally renowned, contemporary British artists whose award-winning work explores important issues of social political and cultural debate and re-defines narrow Eurocentric perceptions of art, heritage and identity. The Twins collaborate on their art, describing their creative practice as ‘Past-Modern’ as opposed to ‘Post Modern’. Their highly decorative, narrative and symbolic work which they developed in response to what they refer to as the cultural prejudice they experienced as art students has been recognised as pioneering a modern revival of Indian miniature painting within contemporary art practice. But their distinctive style is much more eclectic - drawing on the artistic language and conventions of other global artistic traditions, east and west, old and new and incorporating different creative digital practices and mediums. Among the recognition they have received for their contribution to art over the years, The Singh Twins have been awarded an MBE and three Honorary Doctorates. www.singhtwins.co.uk https://firstsite.uk/event/the-singh-twins/

The King is Dead long live the King

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Nhung Ha

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Series of Phuc

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Ivy (I)_bronze

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Ivy (II)_bronze, part

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Ivy pair, bronze

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Hugging, bronze

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Nhung Ha is a Vietnamese and British artist who’s work is mainly resolved in threedimensional forms, depicting the female figure, in a range of materials. The inspiration for her sculptures comes from her upbringing in Vietnam, her gender, sexuality, relationship and the bronze foundry where she works.

Nhung was born in Vietnam. Her family moved to Britain when she was eleven years old.

She studied BA and MA in Fine Art at Norwich University of the Arts, where she where she learnt the process of bronze casting and fell in love with bronze. Nhung was closely taught by Desmond Brett, and worked with renown sculptor Laurence Edwards at his foundry in Halesworth, Suffolk for almost three years.

She feels that, for a very long time, many famous male artists portrayed the female figure from their own perspective. This is where the term ‘the male gaze’ is comes from, Nhung wants to bring her own perspective of the female form, to the world of art.

“I think that through my work, the viewer has a keyhole understanding of my own personal life because the inspiration comes from the relationship I have with my wife.

Therefore I often use her as the model for my sculptures and sometimes she sits for my sketches. By being an artist in the UK, I feel very free to express myself and my sexuality through my sculptures,” she says.

Nhung’s work is currently on display at the Art in East Anglia Gallery in Bury St. Edmunds.

Ivy pair, bronze

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Life w

Benton End an

An exhibition at F

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nd the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing

Firstsite, Colchester, England.

Firstsite, Lewis Gardens, High Street, Colchester, Essex, CO1 1JH 01206 713 700, info@firstsite.uk

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'Life with Art: Benton End and the East Anglian School of painting and drawing', at Firstsite, Colchester, England.

A review by Martin A Bradley

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fter three visits to see the exhibition 'Life with Art: Benton End and the East Anglian School of painting and drawing', at Firstsite, Colchester, I realised that I really wanted to write about that experience, and the insights offered to we visitors.

Those who know me, understand that I have only been back in England for a year (June 4th), after seventeen years lounging around Asia. I have an awful lot of catching up to do in regard to art in the UK, but more specifically art in East Anglia.

A slight background check might reveal my Colchester roots, my schooling at St. Helena Secondary Modern, training at Colchester School of Art, membership to the Colchester Art Society (finally renewed), exhibitions of my brave attempts to be an artist (whatever that may be), and exhibitions that I curated for others in the area, plus a brief interlude (when I was studying a Masters in Gallery Studies at the University of Essex), of volunteering at The Minories.

My sights, at that time, were set on Asia and Asian art. Now I yearn to discover more about the arts in my own country, in particular the art which has taken place near Colchester, in East Anglia. That Firstsite exhibition was a wonderful start. Thank you all who were involved in its creation, and curation.

“This exhibition showcases the network of artists and cultural figures with links to the art school.

Its Influence in the formation of the Colchester Art Society. And the inspirational way of life and approach to teaching and gardening encouraged

by Morris and Lott-Haines. Made in partnership with Colchester Art Society. With support from We Are The Minories. The exhibition features over a hundred artworks. Including works by Morris and Lett-Haines. Drawn from collections from across the UK. Alongside these are artworks by artists who studied at Benton End including David Carr. Lucian

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Freud. Maggi Hambling. Frances Hodgkin. Valerie Thornton. And Denis Wirth-Miller.”

From the introduction to the Firstsite exhibition 'Life with Art: Benton End and the East Anglian School of painting and drawing' (11th December 2021 to 18th April 2022).

(Dark pink board).

From the end of last year (2021) and until the beginning of this year (2022), ‘Firstsite’ (a visual arts organisation opened in Colchester during 2011) presented a major exhibition of important art and artists with connections to Colchester and its surrounding countryside.

Melvyn King (1949-) and Simon Carter (1961), both artists from the Colchester Art Society, working with Firstsite’s Kirsty White curated the immensely impressive and incredibly extensive exhibition titled 'Life with Art: Benton End and the East Anglian School of painting and drawing' (11th December 2021 to 18th April 2022), along with support from ‘We Are The Minories’, and ‘Colchester Art Society’. More of this later.

A Preamble East Anglia has long been recognised by artists as an area of supreme beauty. That quietly undulating, but not necessarily mountainous, land of Britain’s East Anglia has captured the vivid imagination of many artists over the centuries. They went there firstly to admire, then to paint, draw or sketch that gracefully intriguing land, its buildings, people, rivers, and sea.

In the eighteen and nineteenth centuries, painters such as Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788), born in Sudbury, Suffolk, known for his painted landscape works such as ‘Cornard Wood’ (17480 at Great Cornard, Suffolk), took to brush and canvas, or sketching to capture the fascinating East Anglian visions before them. John Constable (1776-1837) was born in East Bergholt, a village on the River Stour, Suffolk, and has given his

name to the area now called ‘Constable country’ (for paintings such as ‘Dedham Vale’ (1802), ‘Flatford Mill’ (1810-11) as well as ‘Willy Lott's Cottage’ (1821) and many others.

attended the Norwich school of art while in an apprenticeship to a Norwich printer. After his apprenticeship, Munnings became a fulltime painter and, in 1919, bought Castle House, Dedham where he lived and had his studio.

For a time Munnings was associated with the Cornish ‘Newlyn School’ art colony (extant from the 1880s until the early twentieth century, according to Wikipedia). Walter Langley (18521922) and Stanhope Forbes (1857-1947) were leading lights in that initial outing for the Newlyn School Art Colony. Despite being mainly known for his equine paintings, Munnings had painted numerous images of the surrounding countryside, like ‘Suffolk Landscape with Farm Buildings’, ‘A View of Boxted Mill’ and ‘A Barge On The Stour At Dedham’.

John Crome (1768-182) was born in Norwich, and was one of the founders of the influential Norwich School of Painters (1803), along with Robert Ladbrooke (1768-1842). Crome painted throughout Norfolk, with canvases such as ‘Slate Quarries’ (1802–5) and ‘Mousehold Heath’, Norwich (1818–20). Thomas Hearne (17441817) the English landscape painter who created the grey wash over pencil - ‘The gateway at Erwarton Hall, Suffolk (1799), was among the many artists who captured Suffolk. So too was Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) who preserved images of East Anglia in his eightynine-page sketchbook ‘Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex’ (1824) and paintings such as ‘Aldborough, The Twentieth Century Suffolk’ (1826).

British art in the early years of the twentieth Towards the end of the nineteenth century, in century had drawn heavily on the innovations London, the ‘New English Art Club’ (NEAC) made in Europe (France, Italy and Germany was founded (1886) by a group of artists which especially). While even back in fifteenth century included John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), East Anglia, mediaeval nomadic ‘artists’ Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) and Camile (painters of Christian iconography for churches Pissarro (1830-1903). Other members included etc.), had gained their inspiration from ‘Europe’.

Sir George Clausen (1852-1944), Stanhope Forbes The work on ‘Temptation of St. Anthony’ one (1857-1947), Walter Sickert (1860-1942, and the screen at Tacolneston (outside Norwich, Philip Wilson Steer (1860-1942). Later members Norfolk) resembles the 1509 work of the Dutch included Paul Nash (1920s), brother to John (see artist, Lucas van Leyden (1494-1533). below).

The Bloomsbury Group (writers E.M. Forster, The NEAC was drawn to Walberswick in East Virginia Woolf and Lytton Strachey, critics Clive Anglia’s Suffolk, probably because the British Bell and Roger Fry as well as painters Vanessa ‘Impressionist’ Philip Wilson Steer stayed at that Bell and Duncan Grant) had taken their lead from picturesque, pastoral haven to paint its vast open School of Paris artists, and early 1900s European skies and rural living during the 1880s and 90s. creatives, as did the NEAC before them.

While visiting, he created paintings such as ‘The Beach at Walberswick’ (1890) and ‘Girls Running: After the First World War (1914-1918), and during Walberswick Pier’ (1894). Having a fifteenth the 1920s artist Edward Bawden (1903-1989) and century church, a mill, cottages and flocks of his friend Eric Ravilious (1903-1942) frequently geese furthered romantic notions of Walberswick. visited Great Bardfield, near Braintree, Essex, That area also housed prominent artists such as from London. the Scottish modernist architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928) who painted a number In 1932, two years after Edward Bawden had of flower studies while at Walberswick including married Charlotte Epton,a potter, (1902-1970), ‘Alder Catkins, Walberswick’ (1914), and ‘Black and moved into Brick House, Great Bardfield.

Bean, Walberswick’ (1915).

Eric Ravilious and his wife Eileen (Lucy ‘Tirzah’ Garwood, 1908-1951), an artist herself, stayed Born in 1878 at Mendham Mill, Mendham, with the Bawdens, in Brick House, until they Suffolk, Alfred Munnings (died 1959) moved to Bank House, in Castle Hedingham 127

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two years later (1934). Ravilious is known for works like 'Salt marsh.' (created in Tollesbury, near Maldon, Essex,1938), while Bawden created many pieces including ‘The road to Thaxted’, (a lino-cut, 1956) and “Ives farm” (1956).

Painter John Aldridge moved to Place House,Great Bardfield in 1933, along with Lucie Brown (nee Saunders). Aldridge painted images such as ‘Beslyn’s Pond’, ‘Home gardens’ and ‘The church across the moors’, (1949) capturing the Essex/Suffolk area around him.

On England’s Essex/Suffolk borderlands, Cedric Morris and his partner Arthur Lett-Haines, who both had success in America, France and Italy, moved out from ‘bohemian’ London and opened the ‘East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing’, in Dedham, Essex (1937). After a fire in 1939, which effectively gutted the art school building (captured in paintings by Joan Warburton ‘Burned school’ (1939), Cedric Morris ‘Gutted school, Dedham’ (1939) and David Carr’s ‘After the fire’ (1940) the school was relocated to Benton End, near Hadleigh, in Suffolk, where it survived for another forty years until Lett-Haines’ death, in 1978. By all accounts Munnings (mentioned above), found it hard to hide his glee at the initial destruction of that art school.

Jacob Epstein and Valerie Thornton, have all had various connections to The Minories.

The Colchester Art School (founded in 1885), was originally called the ‘Albert school of art and science’, and was established in the Minories building at the end of the high street, Colchester.

That educational establishment, in the 1930s, moved onto North Hill, and became known as the North East Essex Technical College and School of Art. In 1959, a new Technical College opened in Sheepen Way (the old road from the cattle market) and the School of Art became a part of that.

John Northcote Nash (mentioned above) was instrumental in founding the Colchester Art Society, which was formed in 1946 for the promotion of the visual arts by a group of artists based in the Colchester School of Art. Amongst the earliest members were John Nash, Cedric Morris, Arthur Lett-Haines, Henry Collins (1910–1994) who was a painter, designer and teacher, was born in Colchester, and married to the artist Joyce Pallot (1912–2004) also an artist.

Collins studied at Colchester School of Art and the Central School of Arts and Crafts. Roderic Barrett (1920-2000) was born in Colchester and studied at Central School of Art and Design (1936-1940) and succeeded Cedric Morris as the president of Colchester Arts Society from The Minories and Colchester School of Art 1982 until his death in 2000. Nash,while living in Essex, taught at Colchester School of Art and The building which became The Minories, was conducted yearly plant illustration courses at bought by Isaac Boggis in 1731. Since 1915, The Flatford Mill, East Bergholt, in Suffolk.

Minories had been owned by the BensusanButt family (with Ruth Bensusan-Butt, being The Firstsite Exhibition the sister-in-law of painter Lucien Pissarro, the son of French Impressionist painter Camille At Firstsite, Colchester, the 'Life with Art: Benton Pissarro). Lucien Pissarro (1863–1944) who had End and the East Anglian School of painting and been taught and trained by his father, and was in drawing’ exhibition team had laid out many, and the habit of painting and drawing the gardens at intricate, connections between some of the most the Minories when he visited, and painted ‘The renowned British twentieth century artists, the Acacia Tree at the Minories, Colchester’ (1935) town of Colchester and its surrounding areas in on more than one occasion..

Essex and Suffolk.

The Minories house and gardens were later sold to the Victor Batte-Lay Trust, in 1956. Over time artists such as Edward Bawden, Leon Underwood, Eric Ravilious, brothers John and Paul Nash, Lucien Pissarro, Cedric Morris, Christopher Wood, Hugh Cronyn, Bill Brandt, Maggi Hambling, Roderic Barrett, Peter Coker, 134

Intentionally, the exhibition eschewed modernist De Stijl/Bauhaus white cubes. Instead, a wealth of imagery was presented on intriguingly colour-coded walls which, so I was told, echoed hues from a Cedric Morris painting discovered at plantswoman Beth Chatto's Plants & Gardens (Elmstead Market, near Colchester). The

exhibition rooms were laid out as if a visitor was at Benton End, along with Arthur Lett-Haines entering a friend’s house, as opposed to a strictly (1894-1978) and welcomed Wirth-Miller and chronological order.

Chopping later, as students.

One wall, by the entrance to the exhibition, drew visitors’ attention. This had an enlarged version of Harwich artist Melyvn King’s meticulously researched and hand-drawn original map of the artistic arena covered by the exhibition.

This painstakingly teased out twentieth century delineation tied artists and places together across the region of England’s East Anglia, immediately adjacent to Colchester.

Through the exhibition rooms, art and artist links were revealed between famous names such as John Nash (1893-1977), and brother to early British surrealist Paul (1889-1946). John Nash was previously a war artist, and had bought a house in Wormingford, near Colchester. British Another leading twentieth century ‘Modernist’, the Pop artist Sir Eduardo Luigi Paolozzi (19242005), had a house in Thorpe-le-soken, Essex, and his sculptures made in Ipswich, Suffolk.

Another claim to fame is Lucian Freud (19222011) who was the grandson of psychoanalyst and (according to the late Prof. Frank Ciofi) a storyteller, Sigmund Freud. Lucien Freud was among the earliest students at the East Anglian School of painting and drawing, aged seventeen.

Suffolk born Maggi Hambling (1945-, Sudbury), first visited the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing at the age of fifteen, and had studied at the Ipswich School of Art. The inimitable, Dublin born, Francis Bacon (1909-1992) is known to have had a studio in Wivenhoe, Essex, near to artists Richard ‘Dicky’ Chopping and Denis Wirth-Miller. Richard Chopping became well known for his cover designs for Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, while Denis (Wirth-Miller) was a close friend of Francis Bacon’s and was chiefly the reason that Bacon, from 1948 onward, frequently visited that “mini-bohemia” which Wivenhoe was becoming (at least according to Jon Lys Turner).

I owe the majority of the above to several excellent books which I delved into for this piece, which I highly recommend (seen below), plus an enlightening conversation I had with Melvyn King and Simon Carter at the Firstsite café bar, for background. Thank you all who have set me on the path to discovering more about my home town and its connections to art (specifically modern).

Background books include; A Lesson in Art & Life; The Colourful World of Cedric Morris & Arthur Lett-Haines, Hugh St.Claire, Pimpernel Press Ltd., 2019.

Artists at Walberswick: East Anglian Interludes 1880 - 2000, Richard Scott, Art Dictionaries Ltd, 2002.

Benton End Remembered: Cedric Morris, Arthur Lett-Haines and the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing, Gwynneth Reynolds and Dianna Grace, Unicorn Press, reprinted 2021.

Cedric and Lett Friends and Lovers, Diana Grace and Andrew Campbell, Darsham Parochial Church Council, 2018.

Colchester Art Society: Complete Illustrated Catalogue 2016, Evelyne Bell, Colchester Art Society, 2016.

Contemporary & Post War British Art Sale, Gainsborough's House Sudbury, The John Hoyland Estate, 2017 Long live Great Bardfield: The autobiography of Tirzah Garwood, Persephone Books Ltd Bath, reprinted 202.

Outsiders: A book of garden friends, Ronald Blythe, Black Dog Books, 2008.

Tate Britain Companion to British Art, Richard Humphreys, Tate, 2001.

The Phaidon Companion to Art and Artists in the British Isles, Michael Jacobs and Malcom Warner, Phaidon, 1980.

The Visitor’s Book, Jon Lys Turner, Constable, paperback 2017.

And various WWW sites.

It must come as no surprise that Wirth-Miller had visited that other jazzy hedonistic venue - Benton End, outside Handleigh, Suffolk, (in 1941) and later, again, with Chopping. Cedric Morris (1889-1982), was the co-founder of the East Anglian School of painting and drawing, 135

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Simon Carter

Simon Carter is an artist and curator who was born in Institute (1980-81 Chelmsford, Ess ) and the North E ex, UK. He studie ast London Polyt d at Colchester echnic (1981-84 ).

In 2013 he colla borated with artis t Robert Prisem Painting’ and then an to form the ar the ‘East Contem tist group ‘Conte porary Art Collect art of the East of mporary British ion’, the first dedi England which is cated collection of housed at the Uni contemporary versity of Suffolk , Ipswich. UK. Carter is presiden t of Colchester A rt Society and ha Essex and Firsts s been ‘Artist-in-R ite, Colchester. H esidence’ at the e is represented University of

by Messum’s.

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Drawing 11 Oct 21

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Field Guide

simon@simoncarterpaintings.co.uk

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KONTAINERAMA Twilight of the Goods

Melvyn King

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Melvyn King St Albans School of Arts and Crafts.

Central School of Arts and Crafts.

Royal Academy Schools Post Grad.

1968 -1970 1970 – 1973 1973 – 1976

Kontainerama: Twilight of the Goods I have a love/hate relationship with container ships and their cargoes. But the industry, with all it’s faults, provides a bountiful source of ideas and inspiration for myself as an observer and painter. I never attempt ship portraits; one could barely distinguish a Maersk from an MSC in my work as I simply take the shapes, colours and forms and turn them into painterly marks that somehow coalesce into a notation of what a ship might look like. The possibility of dissolving into abstraction is always present.

Since my student days I have been fascinated by dazzle camouflage and have recently incorporated some designs in my paintings. I find they work well with the angles and lines of the small sailing vessels that I use to give scale and depth to an image. Dazzle camouflage has many associations other than just abstract design and I have hinted at these in my ‘Periscope’ series.

Other series include ‘Coastal Erosion’, ‘The Harwich Marshes’ and ‘Journey to the Centre of the Thames’.

Harwich 2022 http://www.colchesteropenstudios.org/ (44) 01255 502563 melking2@aol.com

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CHRISSIE WESTGATE

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INTRODUCTION Mersea Island sits on the Essex coast. There, hugging the River Blackwater as it has for the last four hundred years, stands a tiny dwelling place – Coopers Cottage – where I am blessed to live.

Coastal living fills me with contentment and an inherent sense of peace. I breathe in the salty air, delight in every sight and sound and watch the sun as it rises and sets over the water. These are moments for reflection, for soul-searching and sometimes escape, from the wider world.

From my doorstep, I hear the piping call of the orange-beaked oystercatchers as they make their way along the water’s edge, their long scarlet legs moving gracefully through the mud. Above me, seagulls screech in the skies, searching, ever hopefully, for food. Away in the distance, small fishing boats chug back and forth along the sheltered creeks, each proudly displaying the local CK registration number.

I am grateful for all that I see.

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Chrissie Westgate is a fine art photographer living and working on Mersea Island in Essex. She is a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society and a member of the prestigious London Salon of Photography.

Chrissie’s images of local scenery and sailing events can frequently be found in a variety of magazines and are also on display in many local galleries. Each year, together with her husband Colin, she produces a stunning Mersea Island calendar that has become popular around the world.

Chrissie says "photographs play a really important role in everyone's life. Not only do they connect us to our past, but they shape the way we remember things, taking us back to moments in time, preserving them for ever.

Producing 'Whispering Shores’ has afforded me an opportunity to reexperience the initial emotion I felt when capturing the many beautiful sights generated by nature here on Mersea Island. It has also given me a little more wisdom and a great deal of happiness.”

Chrissie has won many awards for her work both international and in the UK. She has had her work exhibited in the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Mall Gallery, the Menier Gallery, the Royal Albert Hall, the Greenwich Museum, Firstsite Gallery and Liverpool Street and Colchester Stations.

In 2020 when the Earl and Countess of Wessex visited Mersea Island Chrissie was one of the island artists chosen to meet them and put on a display of her Mersea Island image

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Chrissie Westgate Tel: 01206 384315 Mobile: (44) 077 166

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Going Bananas

By Martin Bradley

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Banana flower and fruit

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f, like me, you naively believed that bananas (banan - finger in Arabic) spread them into the came from Tesco, then you are in for a very African mainland, then were taken abroad by the Portuguese, Dutch and British colonisers. rude awakening.

Our beloved banana, the world’s favourite fruit, or rather berry. Yes, bananas are officially classified as berries, originated somewhere in the Indo/Malaysian region, according to information gleaned from the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, England, and many people claim that Malaysia (or Papua New Guinea) is the home of the humble (non-Cavenish) banana.

According to the tome The Herball, or General Historie of Plantes (1633 edition) by John Gerard, (edited by Thomas Johnson - herbalist and merchant), bananas were first seen in England round about 1633. Johnson describes how the fruits arrived at his shop, green, and gradually matured in his shop window. However, bananas were not imported regularly into Britain until much later, while America was officially Bananas, once tasted, were later distributed introduced to bananas at the 1876 Philadelphia across the world, firstly in India (about 500 Centennial Exhibition and sold wrapped in tin BC), and it was there that Alexandra the Great foil (for 10 cents each). discovered bananas and took them back to the Western world with him. By 200 AD China was It was Sir Joseph Paxton, Victorian gardener (and growing bananas and inquisitive Arab traders, plant cultivator) who was largely responsible from whom the humble banana got its name for the spreading of the (practical tasteless) 169

‘Banana money’, 10 Dollars WW2 1942-45 Malaya

‘Cavendish’ banana that the British are so fond While banana recipes appeared in American of. That now infamous ‘bean’ was grown in a ‘hot recipe books during the 1880s, with banana bread house’ in northern England, during the 1800s. being mentioned in Elenor Parkinson’s Complete Confectioner (1849), many attribute Mrs Rorer’s The Cavendish banana was named after William New Cook Book (Philadelphia, 1902), page 697 Cavendish (1790 to 1858) who was a president (oddly as a Hawaiian speciality), as being the of the Horticultural Society of London (later The true authority. Sarah Tyson Rorer (who had been Royal Horticultural Society). The story goes that the Principle of Philadelphia Cooking School) he, and Joseph Paxton, received a shipment of might just be responsible for banana cake/ bananas from Mauritius in 1834, and from that bread being made the world over, with the later shipment began growing their own bananas depression era of the 1930s popularising frugal at Chatsworth House. The plant derived from use of materials at hand, including those used their efforts was called ‘Musa Cavenidishii’, for banana cake/bread. or Cavendish banana (which was free of the annoying black seeds found in wild bananas).

It will come as no surprise that there are vast 170

varieties of banana, especially in Malaysia. There are bananas large and bananas small, bananas sweet and bananas not so sweet. There is the original wild banana, from which all the others were cultivated, eaten only by the Orang Asli (aboriginal peoples of Malaysia) and the sweet, stubby, golden banana (pisang emas) used for making banana cake.

There is the giant green plantain (pisang tanduk) - used for savoury dishes and fried, making slim, hard, banana chips (due to size and firmness).

There are a whole host of banana shapes and sizes, and while strolling through a Malaysian market I counted as many as nine different

varieties of banana on one small market stall.

Bananas, in Malaysia, are cooked, not just peeled and eaten raw, but served in a multitude of ways, which does not include watery, slightly suspicious, banana custard either. There is a good possibility that schools up and down Britain got the idea for their dire banana dessert from the splendid Malaysian dish – pengat pisang, which is made from the slightly tart pisang nangka (jackfruit banana), silky coconut milk and sumptuous palm sugar (called gula Melaka in Malaysia). Now if British school children had been given that, life would have been so much richer.

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Cekodok pisang - banana balls, Malaysia

Then there is the deliciously ‘moreish’ banana cake, mentioned earlier, made in Malaysian households, but not with yellow banana essence, but with real mashed bananas (kek pisang), and baked until golden brown while its fragrance fills the entire household, making grown men drool - or is that only me.

There is a huge variety of banana goodies sold on the already aromatic streets of Malaysian towns and cities. Pisang raja bananas are peeled, sliced in half, covered in sweet batter, fried crisply as goreng pisang – an ever-favourite street food during cool mornings and sunset-filled evenings - especially amongst longing children.

In the early evening you can smell the sizzling oil and the slightly mustiness of the bananas from yards away and, even though recently fed, I dare you to pass a stall and not stop to sample the sweet-smelling crispy bananas.

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Elsewhere in Malaysia, unprepossessing yet golden bananas (pisang emas) are mashed into a paste, with flour and sugar added with the resulting mixture carefully dropped into deep, hot oil and fried as sweet ‘cekodok pisang’ balls.

Recently I discovered that a sprinkling of caster sugar and powdered dark chocolate onto the banana balls really brings out the banana flavour and goes nicely with the local sweet coffee (kopi tarik) but, nice as it is, it’s not the traditional way.

Alternatively, green bananas have their outer skin removed, cut into thumb-sized pieces and curried, frequently using the same curry recipe as for fish curry, but made with salt-fish and green bananas.

While the banana fruit has its many culinary uses, purple, bulbous banana flower buds (jantung pisang), are sold in local markets, stripped down to their ‘hearts,’ then boiled or steamed, and

served with rice and hot chilli sauce (sambal), Another legend has it that the infamous Pontianak or diced and made into succulent Malay curry (female vampire ghost – and spirit of a woman (gulai). who died in childbirth) lives within banana plants and, should you urinate anywhere near Banana leaves (daun pisang), used as plates, the plant, the dastardly vampire will seize you, form the basis of the ‘banana leaf’ meal found and drain all your blood. To save yourself, you in some Indian Malaysian restaurants, and must have a sharp object handy, as the Pontianak many Indian homes throughout Malaysia. Also, fears sharp objects. Other tales cite the tying of a banana leaves can be softened in the hot sun, and red cord from the banana plant to your bedpost, used as wrappers for the infamous nasi lemak trapping the Pontianak under your spell. breakfast of rice, chilli, dried anchovies etc, or used to wrap mashed bananas sprinkled with Speaking of spells - earlier I mentioned some shredded coconut, then dry-fried to produce of the Malaysian culinary uses of bananas, ‘maiden in a torn blouse’ (anak dara baju koyak). banana flowers and banana leaves. I will leave you with one more, a favourite of mine – roti Malaysia is a haven for bananas, as they are pisang - griddled roti cannai (Malaysian oily, so easily propagated, usually from corm (or layered, flat bread) entrapping succulent banana offshoot) of the adult plant. Banana plants need slices, and taken with creamy, sweet, practically constant sunshine and heat, and suit tropical gastronomically forbidden condensed milk and sub-tropical temperatures. Though banana mmmmmm. plants desire well-drained soil, when older they prefer plenty of water to produce fruit. Once attributed to Groucho Marx, but Each banana plant only fruits once, but as they nevertheless uttered by Anthony Oettinger is produce new plants constantly, through corms, this wonderful axiom – “Time flies like an arrow, there tends to be a ready supply. fruit flies like a banana”.

To prevent scratching and marking, also to reduce blemishes and external spots on bananas, banana ‘hands’ are often bagged in coloured polythene – white or clear polythene reduces the effect. It has also been proven that bagging effectively increases the overall weight of bananas, and improves the fruit’s quality (Sri Lankan Dept. of Agriculture, 2002).

As you may imagine, bananas have become integral to life in Malaysia. During the Japanese occupation of Malay, paper money, with images of the banana plant printed, was used as ready currency - known as Duit Pisang (banana money). In Malaysia, streets are named after bananas (Jalan Pisang – Kuala Lumpur) as are whole villages Kampung Pulau Pisang – Banana island village, Perak), even rivers Sungai Pisang – Kuching, Sarawak). Therefore, it comes as no surprise that there is at least one local myth involving bananas. Zombie Kampung Pisang (Zombies from Banana Village - 2007) is a Malaysian comedy/spoof horror film, directed

by Mamat Khalid, based very loosely on local fables of brain eating zombies, but only the right kind of brain, mind you.

Banana cake Malaysia

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COMMENTARY BY HUMANISTS Martin Bradley

Since the 1990s, the Chinese avant-garde artist Lou Qi has regaled the world with his unique approach to Chinese traditional pictograms, termed ‘Calligraphyism’, working in a manner which parallels ‘asemic’ writing in the West, and creating fresh approaches to the understanding and enjoyment of Chinese pictograms.

From their first meeting in Hangzhou, China (2014), Luo Qi, and British writer Martin Bradley, have worked together on numerous Chinese based and international projects, and exhibitions.

This revelatory new book ‘Commentary by Humanists; Martin Bradley’ presents the author’s writings about the artist Lou Qi, his work and his working. They appear alongside insightful images by that artist to provide an holistic approach to an understanding of the exceptional Chinese Contemporary artist, poet and calligrapher who is the internationally renown Lou Qi. Published in Cananda Publisher ‫ ‏‬: ‎ Editions Fri (Francoise Issaly) (2022) Language ‫ ‏‬: ‎ English Paperback ‫ ‏‬: ‎ 358 pages ISBN-10 ‫ ‏‬: ‎ 1988828074 ISBN-13 ‫ ‏‬: ‎ 978-1988828077 https://www.amazon.co.uk

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Martin Bradley Martin Bradley is the author of a collection of poetry Remembering Whiteness and Other Poems (2012) Bougainvillea Press; a charity travelogue - A Story of Colors of Cambodia, which he also designed (2012) EverDay and Educare; a collection of his writings for various magazines called Buffalo and Breadfruit (2012) Monsoon Books; an art book for the Philippine artist Toro, called Uniquely Toro (2013), which he also designed, also has written a history of pharmacy for Malaysia, The Journey and Beyond (2014).

Martin wrote two books about Modern Chinese Art with Chinese artist Luo Qi, Luo Qi and Calligraphyism and Commentary by Humanists Canada and China (2017 and 2022), and has had his book about Bangladesh artist Farida Zaman For the Love of Country published in Dhaka in December 2019.

Canada 2022

Singapore 2012

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Malaysia 2012

Ph

Bangladesh 2019

hilippines 2013

China 2017

Malaysia 2014

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THE BLUE LOTU

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US CHAP BOOKS

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THE BLUE LOTU

The Blue Lotus magazine is published by Martin A Bradley (

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US BACK ISSUES

(The Blue Lotus Publishing), in Colchester, England, UK, 2021

...a selection 181

EAST TO EAST

ISSN 2754-9151 • NO. 54 • SUMMER ISSUE • 2022 • THE BLUE LOTUS is published quarterly by The Blue Lotus Publishing (M.A.Bradley), Colchester, Essex, England, UK. © 2022 M.A.Bradley. All rights reserved.

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