Post-London Period

Sulaiman Esa returned home to Malaysia in mid-1968 and worked as a Graphic Designer at Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP), where he created illustrations for journals with traces of pop art genre, inspired by the pop art culture in London in the 60’s. Fresh from Hornsey’s experience, Sulaiman generated momentum in propagating western art ideas and experiment art in local language. Belonging to the Constructivist group, he joined ITM (Institut Teknologi Mara; now UiTM) in mid-1970 and began to take part in a number of groundbreaking exhibits (together with the late Piyadasa) in his tireless attempts to elucidate alternative paradigm in the development of modern Malaysian art.

Malaysian art in the late 1960s had two opposing mainstream groups. First, the Abstract Expressionists consisting of the late Syed Ahmad Jamal, Latiff Mohidin, Yeoh Jin Leng and so forth. Their works are mainly on expressions and feelings in image-making. Second, the New Scene (NS) consisted of the late Redza Piyadasa, Tang Tuck Kan, Choong Kam Kow and Tan Teong Eng. NS were seen to counter the Abstract Expressionists ideology. Here, they were deeply rooted with the Bauhaus system and inspired by the formal properties of art (Sabapahy, Piyadasa, 1983).

Sulaiman and the late Redza Piyadasa evolved consistently on four significant exhibitions marking milestones in the historical development of modern art. An example was, two years after Experiment ’70, in 1972, Sulaiman and Redza Piyadasa had an exhibition together entitled Dokumentasi 72.  Some of his other artworks were Scroll painting that rejects the conventional method of using support and edges of painting and his most accomplished work piece was Man and His World (1973), a collection of personal identities through his belongings used in his daily city life; personal letters/documents, collections of photographs and magazines that were systematically arranged.

Sulaiman’s Scroll series investigated the structural relationship between the optical and the physical reality of the material where his colours act as “visual agents” in enhancing the “object-ness” and the real-ness of the material. In rejecting the conventional method of using support and edges of painting, as in his “Scroll painting” Sulaiman reiterates –

In physically manipulating the surface structure of the material by crumpling, and folding the material, he created actual planes in space where they become like “ridges and crevices” like that of mountain ranges when seen from high altitudes. After much involvement in this scroll painting technique and working with transparent and glowing surface materials, Sulaiman came with the following conclusion:

Sulaiman’s preoccupation with the concept of art as objects was further generated in his Man and His World (1973) competition, organized by the National Art Gallery. It is a collection of personal identities through his belongings used in his daily city life; personal letters/ documents, collections of photographs and magazines are systematically arranged in custom made clear plastic pockets sown on to large transparent material. His approach echoes the physicality of objects rooted in social urban life. Instead of the conventional practice of formally expressing these pieces on canvas interpreted with formal aesthetics, he kept these images in their original contexts in maintaining their social significance and treated them as art. Through his collections of personal belongings, his daily life story alludes to a typical Westernised way of life with a shirt, a necktie, cuff links, leather shoes, birthday cards, Françoise Hardy’s long play record, etc. The prayer mat hung on the left side of the work, signifies he is a Muslim.

Apart from his visual art engagements, Sulaiman displayed his versatility by being actively involved in stage and costume designs for the theatrical plays working with among others, Usman Awang’s Uda dan Dara, Syed Alwi’s Alang Rentak Seribu and The Birds by Vijaya Samawikrama. Sulaiman’s propensity in stage and costume designs earned him the one-year Italian scholarship in Stage and Costume Design course at Academia de Roma in Rome in 1975.

Rejection of Dependence on Western Art

The Towards A Mystical Reality manifesto (1974) was a response to the political situation in Malaya, which gained independence from Britain in 1957. The new independent government was committed to instilling Malay Islamic values in national culture (as a result to the race riots of 1969), through the convening of the 1971 National Cultural Congress (NCC) in which Malaysia’s identity was spelled out in NCC’s policy. The policy was:

1. Elements of Malay art;
2. Islamic cultural elements; and
3. Art elements of other ethnic groups.

The nation’s assertion in upholding national identity in the post-colonial era was to counter the hegemony of Western culture in local art scene (Lovell, 2004). Thus, in Toward a Mystical Reality, a jointly-shared exhibit by Piyadasa and Esa’s attempt in liberating Malaysian artists’ dependence on western influence and replacing it with an Eastern tradition: the Zen and Buddhist perspectives in the appreciation of reality. They postulated that true art lay in the mystical perception of ordinary reality espousing conceptualist modes of Eastern art in which ideas for a work is more important than the finished work (Sanusi, Ahmad, 2010).

At The Crossroads

After effectively rejecting Western-centric art, Sulaiman was in an impasse. However, it was during this period he produced a controversial pieces Waiting for Godot- a series of open plate intaglio prints. It was a critical moment in his life now that he had negated western art that he had been obsessed with for more than two decades. Complex questions “Is he a Malay, Muslim and a Malaysian?; How would he reconcile his Islamic roots and Islamic elements in art?" assail his conscience and consciousness. It was within this soul-searching period he produced Waiting for Godot series. The provocative combination of female nude underneath the Islamic architecture is a metaphor for western art tradition as distraction that impede proper contemplation of the Divine. Islamic ornamentations as background represent Islamic art and the grace brought by His blessing. Controversial as the work was, he won an award in the ‘Printmaking Competition’ organised by the National Art Gallery. To Sulaiman, Waiting for Godot series could be regarded as his self-portrait reflecting his predicament then. During these intense soul-searching period, he could not but became deeply moved by the new bearing specifically Islamic worldview on Malay art tradition.