Masidi applauds work of local artists
KOTA KINABALU: The 1Malaysia Contemporary Art Tourism (1MCAT) is good platform for boosting the rapidly growing and vibrant art scene in Sabah, apart from attracting more foreign tourists to visit the State.
Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun said the programme brought by Tourism Malaysia provides a great opportunity to local artists to showcase their works and promote themselves not just in local market but also among potential international buyers.
Officiating at the opening of Art Carnival 1MCAT The Golden 50 at the Sabah Art Gallery here yesterday, Masidi said the local art scene has a lot of great talents that could be promoted in international contemporary arts industry.
“From what I have seen, the work of our local artists are very good. What we need to do is just find a way to market these talents and make sure that they could create arts that would not just be appreciated but also provide them with competitive profit,” he said.
The weekend carnival featuring various paintings from local artists is held as part of the 1MCAT Sabah 2013 event, to commemorate the golden 50th anniversary of Malaysia.
This is the third year that Sabah participates in the 1MCAT programme, where 10 major art events have been rolled out since July and a few more post-MCAT events scheduled to be held.
Exciting things are happening at galleries, art shops and various other participating premises in the city, such as the Sunrise Art Gallery, CAG Assylum, South Sea Santuary and Lavinia Private Art Gallery.
Exhibitions and art demonstrations are also being held at places outside Kota Kinabalu such as Tempat Melukih in Tamparuli and Apansol Art Studio in Kota Belud.
Towards commercially promoting the works of local painters, Masidi suggested their works be incorporated into batik clothing.
He said the batik industry offers a huge and still growing lucrative market that would allow local artists to mass produce their arts and reel in considerable income.
“If you do a painting on a paper and sell it as an art piece you will only sell one, but turn that into a batik design and you have a lot of art products.
“The market is there, there are a lot of buyers even just in Kota Kinabalu who are looking for high quality and unique batik. And batik is not a cheap art either. A simple batik shirt for instance could fetch up to RM2,000 a piece,” he said, noting that he himself has a collection of some 120 batik shirts.
Masidi also urged local artists to strive for perfection and aim to create a master piece, not to be content on producing just another piece of ordinary work.
Source : Borneo Post
