At the CIMB Artober, I spotted an art exhibition being held from 6-8 October 2023 at the Malaysia International Trade and Exhibition Centre (MITEC).
Amongst some wonderful paintings, you will find some of Anne Koh’s latest works.
- Anne Koh (2023) The Giraffe [Oil on Canvas].
In many of their family karaoke sessions, Anne Koh’s brother-in-law will ask to sing songs by Neil Diamond. Was Diamond’s Solitary Man in her mind when she painted the giraffe walking tall with majestic poise?
A mix of representational and impressionistic, it is in a style Koh has used in many of her earlier paintings. The giraffe will sometimes disappear into the misty background if you look at it from a different angle.
This painting is dark, not just in terms of light and shades. During the day, the giraffe is tall, upright and poise. Almost majestic and aloof, it munches at the leaves on the tree top. But, it is dark now. The sun has gone down and it has turned foggy. It does not see what’s in front of it nor sense what’s behind it. The giraffe is alone. But, it is no longer safe. It has to remain vigilant and brave.
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.
Marie Curie
Meanwhile, Neil Diamond is singing.
Don’t know that I will
But until I can find
The girl who’ll stay
And won’t play games behind me
I’ll be what I am
A solitary man, solitary man
2. Anne Koh (2023) – The Zebras in Africa, Op. 89 [Oil on Canvas].
The zebras frolic in the open plains. Without the usual predators hiding to take them down, they briefly gather together to enjoy the respite. Can you see them dancing and prancing while the other animals create musical sounds like musicians in an orchestra with their braying, growling, chirping, howling? The sounds come from near and far; some loud and others soft, with crescendos and diminuendos, tonal and atonal, yet altogether, musical.
Koh paints the images of zebras as she saw them, some that are clear, yet at the same time, some are partially clear and others are hidden. The frequencies of the sounds she heard and the black and white keys of the piano are depicted as lines of the zebra’s stripes. The lightness of touch, the agility and technique demanded of the pianist and movements of the zebra are brilliantly captured by Koh as they reflect the music playing in her studio at the time – Camille Saint Saens’ Africa Op. 89, Fantasie for piano and orchestra, which he composed when he visited Egypt after the death of his mother. His knowledge of African folk music is reflected in his music.
3. Anne Koh (2023) Darknesse Visible [Oil on Canvas].
During the safari she attended with her husband and friends, Anne Koh felt the loneliness of the zebra seemingly lost in the savanna without its friends as the sun’s descent to the horizon started to dim the grassland. Koh painted this work about the lonely zebra looking for a friend. Its stripes depict the keys of the piano.
Zebras sleep standing up and can’t sleep alone. They survive and thrive by being together, looking after one another in a tightly-knit family unit. Koh was very concerned for this animal’s well-being, left alone on a dark night.
The haunting and shimmering piano music, Darknesse Visible by Thomas Adès, lends the atmosphere of unease and imminent evil to this painting. Will the lonely zebra be okay in the wild on its own? Will the tracks it makes on the soil there be the last ones it leaves behind? Will it find its friend? Or, will it be like the Darknesse Visible’s ending, its final steps as tentative and careful as it rushes into oblivion?
4. Anne Koh (2023) Sonata for Two Pianos [Oil on Canvas].
The zebra’s black and white stripes amazed Anne Koh when she looked at them from close proximity. “They are really unique creatures from God,” she said. She found the stripes beautiful and the different patterns remarkable.
Of the many photos taken, her most favourite one is that of two zebras standing head to tail with each other, heads resting on each other’s back. How clever! They give each other a pillow to rest and at the same time, look out for danger from both ends and swish flies away from each other’s face.
They look stately and calm as they rest, and then, it’s time to gallop away.The galloping sounds in the third movement of Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos, K.448A fill the air as Koh paints them in her studio.
5. Anne Koh (2023) Merry-Go-Round of Life [Oil on Canvas].
When she was a young girl, her rose-tinted lens romanticised the images of colourful horses going round and round in a picture book, giving her the thrill and sense of magic of wonderful foreign lands. Koh never did enjoy a ride in a merry-go-round.
Joe Hisaishis’s music from the animated movie Howl’s Moving Castle was the music playing in Anne Koh’s mind over and over again, as she painted this work. The poignant music flows and ebbs beautifully as the metamorphoses of the characters in the film come to life in the Merry-Go-Round of Life.
The piano takes centre stage in the music as does the zebra in this painting. Koh sees the constant cycle of birth and death in the wild. Some have to die for others to live. Life is a circle, unending and unyielding.
6. Anne Koh (2023) Bach Concerto for Four Pianos [Oil on Canvas].
Originally written by Vivaldi for four violins, Bach’s version is mind-blowing. What an experience it is to hear the combined sounds of four pianos in this great music. Written in A minor, it is surprisingly cheerful and upbeat. Rather than four separate sounds, the four pianos come across as a single sound. While retaining their individuality, they come together as one.
During her safari holiday, Anne Koh felt the same way as listening to the concerto for four pianos. In the vastness of the savanna, the mystery beyond what her eyes could see was spellbinding to her. The myriad of sounds from unknown creatures and unseen insects was enchanting, yet beneath the calm and serenity of the Serengeti, lurked one constant, danger.
To survive, the zebras must be constantly alert with a keen sense of smell, communicating with other herd members, braying, barking snorts and other sounds, always with eyes wide open and ears ready for any warning calls.
7. Anne Koh (2023) Moonlight Sonata II [Oil on Canvas].
Beethoven’s beautiful piano sonata was the inspiration for this work by Anne Koh. Her painting of a galloping zebra depicts a pianist awash in white on a moon-lit night on the savanna during her safari holiday.
Lions of the Serengeti are less successful on moon-lit nights when they are less inconspicuous to their prey. Less predictable than other animals such as the wildebeests and gazelles, Zebras are often also willing to venture out and graze when the moon is out but come together to form a herd when the night is dark.
8. Anne Koh (2023) Bach’s Bach Lullaby [Oil on Canvas].
Anne Koh paints this work with baby lullaby music playing all day and night in her holiday home in Adelaide. A surprise visit from her daughter, Violet, and her hubby brought immense happiness to the household. They also brought with them their three-month-old baby, Sebastian, who was given the nickname Bach, by his granduncle. Bach’s favourite was undoubtedly, Bach’s lullaby, Minuet in G Major Bwv Anh. 114.
Bach’s grandparents, both sexagenerians, suddenly found themselves immersed in the joy and love of caring for the new addition to their family. Oh, what an amazing time they had!
Of course, it also came with the busyness and headaches of minding a baby. It was clear that grandpa and grandma Koh were the ones to immerse in deep sleep with the lullabys playing all night.
9. Anne Koh (2023) The Conductor [Oil on Canvas].
The movement of a giraffe’s tail, swishing left and right, sometimes gently, sometimes intensely, was what captured Anne Koh’s attention during a holiday at the Serengeti. The giraffe stands tall, very upright and quite majestic. With its height, as if standing on a podium, it has the vantage point of looking at everything around it. Not unlike a conductor in an orchestra.
Anne Koh depicts the conductor’s baton in this painting with a giraffe’s tail. Left, right, up and down, articulating, gesticulating, imploring, encouraging, and commanding the players with his bodily movements.
10. Anne Koh (2023) Rach 3 [Oil on Canvas].
Rachmaninov’s manic, exciting yet soulful piano concerto is brought to life on canvas in this work by Anne Koh using the zebra’s stripes to depict the piano keys. The deliberate splashes of paint and confidence in the strokes demonstrate the energy and physical demands the concerto requires of the pianist.
The Rach 3 has it all – the beautiful melodies of the first movement, the romantic and sublime 2nd movement with its nostalgic heart-tugging sounds of the strings, and of course, the almost unplayable third movement with its virtuosic, thundering, and powerful finale.
The painting gives the impression of randomness, madness, turbulence with exciting yet controlled energy, a reflection of the emotions and awesome technical power Rach 3 so amazingly demands of the soloist, breathtakingly superb in finesse and virtuosic power.
11. Anne Koh (2023) Chariots of Fire [Oil on Canvas].
Run! Run! Run!
In the movie Chariots of Fire, the men ran to win. One for the glory of God, the other to beat the prejudice against his religion and race.
In this painting, Anne Koh’s depiction of a herd of zebras galloping at full tilt gives the same feelings.
Run! Run! Run!
Was it a migration to greener pastures, or a bonding of friends and family, or were they trying to outrun their predators?
The top half of the painting is completed but it is deliberately left understated – life is not always filled with abundance, sometimes, we have nothing at all and other times, we have a lot of things that are hidden out in the open. Here, some will see yet others will miss the sky, clouds, wind, the stars and the moon but they are definitely all there. The bottom half depicts the toughness of life – it can be rough and chaotic when everyone is rushing for the same reward, be it for mere survival, comfort or largesse.
12. Anne Koh (2023) From the New World [Oil on Canvas].
Antonin Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 was written by him in 1893 after he had migrated to America. He said at the time that this new music was influenced by Native American and African-American sounds and that they “bore a remarkable similarity to the music of Scotland”. Dvořák was inspired by the “wide open spaces” of America, such as prairies he may have seen on his trip to Iowa.
Anne Koh listened to Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 frequently when she painted the migration of the zebras and wildebeests she witnessed at the Serengeti during her holiday there with her husband. Of the migration, she said, “I was surprised to see them migrate together, as if by prior agreement.” She feared for their safety and prayed hard that they wouldn’t jump into the mouths of crocodiles waiting in the river.
13. Anne Koh (2023) Born Free [Oil on Canvas].
Anne Koh’s brother-in-law, a wannabe crooner, often requests to sing songs by Perry Como and Andy Williams. One of his favourites is Born Free.
The messages are meaningful and appealing. We are born free and life is worth living. We are surrounded by beauty and life never ceases to astound us. No walls should divide us and we ought to be like a roaring tide, for there’s no need to hide our freedom.
Born free
As free as the wind blows
As free as the grass grows
Born free to follow your heart
In this painting, Anne Koh recreates the memory she had, searching for a leopard up in a tree during a holiday in the Serengeti with her husband. After what seemed like many hours, she finally spotted its tail and then the spots on its body became obvious.
“Can you see it?” she asks.
14. Anne Koh (2023) Journey of Life [Oil on Canvas].
In this painting, Anne Koh uses one line starting from left and ending at the right to depict the journey of life which came into her mind after witnessing the birth and in the very next minute, the death of another animal on her safari holiday at the Serengeti.
Some journeys are short, awfully brief whereas some are long and fruitful. In Adelaide, Koh’s neighbour’s mother is a centenarian. Life is a mixed bag of emotions, experiences, and sometimes, if we are lucky or wise, we are able to find the meaning of it too. But, there is no doubt, it has its ups and downs, and often with unexpected twists and turns, taking us to emotional peaks and troughs as Koh’s painting demonstrates.
Life is a journey and not a destination. But, as Koh depicts in this painting, it has a beginning with a birth and an ending. A shortcut may be a detour and sometimes, we simply end up in circles, going round and round, lost in a nightmare. We may not know what’s coming or going and even if we did know trouble is heading our way, there may be no way of stopping it. So, just live and enjoy the journey as much as we can.
15. Anne Koh (2023) The Firebird Suite [Oil on Canvas].
In this painting, Anne Koh combines all the elements of the natural environment in the Serengeti to depict total freedom of animals in the wild. What we can clearly see are zebras heading towards us, whether they are in the middle of a migration or being hunted down by some predators. What we cannot see does not mean they are not there. The dusty grassland of the savanna, the occasional stunted tree, the hordes of wildebeests and antelopes, the distant giraffe and wrinkly grey elephants.
Hidden in camouflage are the lions.
As she paints this, Koh is listening to The Firebird Suite by Igor Stravinsky. The final moment of intense celebration, when the egg containing Koschei’s soul is crushed thereby freeing his subjects and enemies from their enchantments, is captured by the thunderous roar of her zebras as the trombones and horns bring the story to its finale.
16. Anne Koh (2023) Paisajes by Mompou [Oil on Canvas].
This painting is inspired by the passages of musical notes composed by Federico Mompou in his Paisajes. The music is soft with sparse notes and simple chords yet the lyrical melodies connect with Anne Koh as she conjures up a story of her zebras hiding in camouflage with little or no movement. Paisaje means landscape, everything that you can see across a vast area of land. For animals to survive, they have to hide in it. Camouflage is a useful way for them to confuse the stronger and bigger predators. The incredibly beautiful patterns of the zebra’s stripes is to ward off biting flies that may carry deadly diseases.
Anne Koh (2023) The Butterfly Lovers [Oil on Canvas].
A tragic love story, set in the eastern Jin Dynasty, is the inspiration for this painting. Women in those days were deprived of higher education.The girl in the story disguises herself as a boy to pursue her scholarly ambition. The girl meets a boy in class and the two have great affinity for each other. He, a scholar but ignorant in all things about love, fails to recognise she is a girl despite the many hints she drops. By the time he discovers the truth, she is already betrothed to another. He falls ill and dies of a broken heart. A storm stops her wedding procession right in front of his tomb. She rushes to his grave and begs for it to open up. The grave suddenly opens up amidst a clap of thunder and lightning. She jumps into it to join him. Their spirits take the form of two pupae and we witness them turning into butterflies. The two butterfly lovers are still together, eternally inseparable.
Koh’s painting depicts the birth of the two butterflies in this work. In her studio, sometimes Joshua Bell’s performance of the Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto fills the air, other times, it is the arrangement for the piano that blasts out from her windows as she matches the speed of her brush strokes with that of the pianist’s fingers in full flight.
Anne Koh (2023) King of the Serengeti [Oil on Canvas].
This painting is a tribute to a lion – the king of the savannah. Named Bob Junior after Bob Marley because he was always easy to spot, the lion king ruled the savannah for seven years before being taken down by younger, stronger rivals.
Anne Koh was told this story during her holiday with her husband at the Serengeti.
She remembers Bob Junior because his story brings home to her about life in the jungle. It is about the survival of the fittest. It is not laws or ethics that govern how animals live but how powerful and strong one has to be.
Today, there is so much geopolitical tension around the world that Bob Junior’s story should serve as a constant reminder. Violence begets violence and that should be best left to the lions.
As she paints this work, Koh is listening to music in The Lion King. The song she likes best is Can you Feel the Love Tonight.
He’s holding back, he’s hiding
But what, I can’t decide
Why won’t he be the king I know he is?
The king I see inside?
Can you feel the love tonight?
The peace the evening brings
The world, for once, in perfect harmony
With all its living things
Urghhlings 