Saiful Razman

Rumah Saya dan Angkasa is a visual meditation on an ideal home. A video installation plays a visual poem relating to the hopes and visions of a close friend as he refurbishes and renovates his first house in Kuala Lumpur, alongside an animation relating to rumah Kutai, a traditional form of house native to Perak, dating back to 1800.

The video installation is set against a wall collage showing stylistic patterns of walls and roof of the traditional rumah Kutai. Rumah Saya dan Angkasa tries to look at both facts and fictions of the ideal home, drawing together the aspirations of contemporary life in KL, and the model of a traditional house from a life of the past.

Saiful Razman (b. 1980, Malaysia) earned a Bachelor’s degree in painting at Universiti Teknologi MARA, in 2003. Over the years, he has explored everything from pop-inspired collages, to abstract oil paintings that play with colour and patterns. His current series engages everyday objects and disposable items, such as medical gauze and tissue paper. These ordinary, everyday items are then manipulated and reinforced using polyvinyl adhesive and polycrylic to construct larger surface for installations and collages on canvas while retaining their physical features.

His works have been exhibited in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Australia, Lebanon and Bangladesh. His solo exhibitions include Future Love, Chan+Hori Contemporary, Singapore (2019), Vertical Speed, Richard Koh Fine Art @ Art Bazaar Jakarta, Indonesia (2015); Forms of Void, Richard Koh Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2013); Ereksi Jeneral, Richard Koh Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2012); and Pelan – Pelan & Bilik Gerakan, The Annexe Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2008).

Saiful Razman has also participated in numerous group shows such as the 18th Asian Art Biennale Bangladesh, Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka (2018) and Art Jakarta, D’ Gallerie, Jakarta (2019); 1st Kuala Lumpur Biennale, National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur (2017); The Unreal Deal: Six Decades of Malaysian Abstract Art, Bank Negara Malaysia Museum and Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur (2017) and Beirut Art Fair, Menasart: South East Asia Pavilion, Richard Koh Fine Art, Beirut (2013).

He received his first major recognition as an artist in 2003, receiving an Honourable Mention at the Philip Morris Malaysian Art Awards. In 2017, he received a major award at The Young Contemporaries, a national level competition for contemporary artists in Malaysia. In 2020, he served as an artist-in-residence at Facebook HQ Singapore. And recently he received the 2021 United Overseas Bank (UOB) Painting of the Year (Malaysia) and Southeast Asia Painting of the Year award in Singapore.