About the Master Printmaker - Loo Foh Sang By Wai Yee

ABOUT THE MASTER PRINTMAKER

 By: Wai Yee

Loo Foh Sang's art has always been about the detail. From the sensuous classical dancers to the sweeping heavenly bodies with Eastern elements, every curve is expressive and every cut, profound. His vivid imagery has the ability to jump straight at the viewers.

Loo is undoubtedly one of the most illustrious Malaysian printmakers, and he is among the finest draftsmen and an artist of marked imagination and sensibility.

 

"Evening" - Print by Loo Foh Sang 

Zanita Anuar, Senior Curator at the National Visual Arts Gallery, opined that Loo's plaster cast prints along with his lithographs, monoprints, engravings and woodcuts, etchings and drypoints, often revealed a series of rich relationships between the vision and the spirit.

"Modernism wasn't automatically in conflict with Loo's own local tradition in his works. The manner in which he exerted control throughout his artmaking process has enabled viewers to derive an understanding of his continuous re-examination of time and life and their delicateness," she said.

The late Rahime Harun, a notable print artist himself and the former Director of the National Art Gallery (now, the National Visual Arts Gallery), had this observation of Loo:

"The symbiosis of Eastern and Western inclinations that has synthesised into Loo's original style can be attributed to the influences of Cheong Soo Pieng and SW Hayter. As an understudy with the two masters, Loo has in the last 40 years managed to emerge in the forefront of printmaking, each year making great strides and exploring new techniques."

 

Atelier 17: A Printmaking Journey in Paris

Stanley William Hayter is widely recognised as the 'Father of Contemporary Printmaking', and was also the founder of the renowned printmaking workshop, Atelier 17, in Paris. He revitalised the print art of gravure and went on to develop an intaglio technique that enabled multicoloured printing from a single plate.

Loo's destiny crossed with Hayter's in 1967. After his graduation from the Nanyang Academy, out of love for his then-girlfriend (and now, wife) and a passion for art, Loo took a leap of faith to join his girlfriend in France.

"I wanted to be inspired, to learn and to develop my skills and become an avant-garde artist. When I reached Paris, I didn't know a word of French. I took express language classes and qualified to enrol myself at the art ecole. I learned printmaking in the morning, rushed to art classes at L'Ecole in the afternoon and worked as a waiter at a Chinese restaurant in the evening," Loo explained. "Life then was busy and difficult, but it was the passion and love that helped me overcome all hardships."

 

Printmaking hadn't always been Loo's specialty, at least not until his Paris move. He was trained in painting in that celebrated Nanyang style, but joining Atelier 17 in 1967, Loo honed his printmaking skills under Hayter.

Hayter is noted for his innovative work in the development of viscosity printing and in the next four years, Loo devoted himself to the art of printmaking under the guidance of the celebrated master.

"What elements are to be chosen and how they are placed, fixed and connected are issues of great importance to the printmaker. The finality of these smaller decisions is in turn registered in the graphics that we see as a finished picture," described Anuar. "One will notice that in many of his Paris studio images, Loo enjoys depicting fantasy and beguiling compositions which he further fuses in a mist of colours."

 

 "The Sea Women" - Print by Loo Foh Sang 

 

Bill Clement, a notable Australian artist, noted, "In Loo's latest works, there are then the developed possibilities that colour allows in alliance with an imagery that is drawn from his cultural heritage. And it is in the dialogue between these two elements that gives rise to images that speak of an artist who has absorbed the influence of the master and has not become a clone of that master."

Printmaking is an art of indirectness and repetition, and Loo's more than 50 years' romance with this art form continues to resonate and engage till this very day.

 

From humble beginnings to a destiny etched in art

Loo is the youngest of nine brothers and sisters, and he grew up in a remote town in Pahang. It was a humble childhood where actual art materials were scarce but that did not stop young Loo from creating pictures. Wood and charcoal on miles and miles of walls and wooden boards were his creative outlet, and he was encouraged by his mother.

When he was six, a nurse, who regularly came by the house to check on his ill father, took one look at Loo's handiwork work on display all over the house and made a prediction that seemed set in the stars - she told his mother that he would one day become a successful artist.

 

Loo Foh Sang painting in younger days

No one paid much heed to what she said then as art wasn't a big part of the education system nor was it a practical career choice back then. But as fate would have it, after secondary school, Loo ended up taking up art at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in Singapore. He has never looked back since and now in his 70s, Loo is still the spirited art student and meticulous print master all rolled into one.

When told that he is fondly referred to by the art community as the 'Father of Malaysian Printmaking', the ever-humbled Loo just smiled and said, "Title and recognition don't really matter to me nor do they affect my views on art. I've never thought about becoming popular nor sought to gain social recognition."

He continued, "However, I am truly grateful to those who appreciate my art. What really matters to me is to give back to my country and our society. That has become my life's mission and I've never given a thought to quitting nor retiring."

 

~ Loo Foh Sang Printmaker