Kim Ng

Does a seed make any noises when it sprouts out from the ground? How many noises can we hear from different quiet life forms like plants in nature?   

Bunyi Senyap Benih (The Silent Sound of Seeds) attempts to make use of the clay material as a symbolic gesture to address how mankind lives with nature, and how nature grows into a form of coexisting with mankind through a string of long hand-formed clay beads.  The interrelationship and the attachment of one to the other becomes a counterpart that cannot be separated and avoided; like a string of beads.

The representational signage of the fired clay beads as “seed” indicates where most of the flora and fauna grow from.  The installation utilizes the material, form and structure to portray the ambiguous approach towards nature, the environment and the people who own the land.  Instead of depicting the images of flora and fauna directly, the artist uses the “seed” as a metaphor to signify the essence of the origin and the beginning of the life form in a conceptual manner to examine the problems of ownership, identity, hierarchy and the differences that are rooted deep inside the ground.  Bunyi Senyap Benih (The Silent Sound of Seeds) provides a resonance for contemplation and into discourse, argument, confrontation, compromise and settlement on the ground we share.  The installation work projected silent voices from the clay seeds helplessly fossilized in time and place.

Malaysian artist, Kim Ng was born in Johor in 1965, and has resided in Ipoh, Perak since 2000 after returning from his study in the UK.  He set up his studio in Kuala Lumpur, where he currently lives and works.  Kim Ng holds a position as the Head of Fine Art at Dasein Academy of Art, Kuala Lumpur, where he has been teaching and managing the department since 2002, and successfully fostered young contemporary artists in the region in Malaysia. 

As a practising artist and educator, Kim Ng has honed his skills in multidisciplinary art in the past thirty years, and has been heavily involved in the local art scene.  Since 2000, he has had eight solo exhibitions with local art galleries and spaces in Malaysia, and numerous previous group exhibitions.   His work has been widely collected by private individuals and corporations both within Malaysia and beyond, and he has also been involved in international art workshops and artist residencies in Taiwan, Thailand and Malaysia.  

Kim Ng graduated from London Guildhall University in the UK with a Bachelor Honours degree in Fine Arts in 1996, and furthered his training in the UK with two Master degrees in Design and Media Arts in the University of Westminster in 1997, and MA by Project from London Metropolitan University in 2002.