The Career Journey and Creative Process of Zam Kamil

Art is moreover available in bareness, imperfection or being tucked in kerfs. It sometimes needs to be reborn to discover its fate.
(Multazam Kamil)

Career Journey
MULTAZAM (Zam) Kamil was born on August 5, 1969 in Makassar, South Sulawesi. He is an alumnus of 1990 Faculty of Art, Indonesian Art Institute (Institut Seni Indonesia) in Yogyakarta. He lives with a wife and two daughters in Wirosaban, Yogyakarta. Unlike his colleagues at ISI Yogyakarta who mainly adopt expressionism, Zam Kamil’s works are categorized into Impressionism.

Zam Kamil was very active in student activities at his alma mater. He was always involved in the exhibitions "Spirit 90". The Spirit 90 is the name of a group of students of the Faculty of Fine Arts 1990. In the beginning of 1994, The Spirit 90 held a five-day exhibition (5-10 February 1994) in Purna Budaya,Yogyakarta. In this event, all the paintings on show were sold out like hotcakes. Some people believe that that event was the first explosion of ' Art Bomb ' in Yogyakarta. After the successful exhibition in 1994, the Spirit 90 continued to exhibit their works about a dozen times until 2005.

Although his classmates were enjoying the newly acquired success, Zam Kamil preferred not to follow the flow and instead left his social environment. He did not believe the new reality that he experienced. He then traveled to various places. Commencing from 1994 to 1999, he traveled to Bali, Mataram, Toraja, Bandung, Jakarta and various other places that appealed to him. In these places, he immersed himself into the world of junkies, street women's groups, street children communities, the freebooters and even groups of preachers in the mosques. A world in which for a majority of people had nothing to do with his activities as an artist. He calls what he did as a 'journey of observation'.

Still in the same time frame, Zam Kamil still worked to simply comply with the exhibition invitations that were initiated by his companions in the Spirit 90. He even had time to do some research on prehistoric cave wall paintings at the Leangleang site in South Sulawesi. The study was a part of his preparation for his thesis in order to achieve his Bachelor’s degree. Interestingly, during the process Zam Kamil got guidance from Masters because the weight of his research is generally considered to be beyond the capacity of the prospective undergraduate degree (S-1).

Entering 2001, he held his solo exhibition at Leangleang Art Studio, Yogyakarta. Six years later, precisely in 2007 Zam Kamil made a big leap in the history of his painting career. He was invited to establish a solo exhibition at The Aryaseni Art Gallery, Singapore.  He sent about 20 paintings to Singapore. Up to now, The Aryaseni Gallery continues to mediate an auction of Zam Kamil’s works of painting over Borobudur Auction and Masterpiece Auction; two most prestigious auction forums in Singapore.

In the mid of 2008, CG Gallery Jakarta was opened. In the beginning, CG Gallery occupied Plaza Indonesia Building Level 3 # 56, Jl. MH Thamrin, Central Jakarta. And to complement the soft opening, Zam Kamil was invited to hold his solo exhibition there. Perhaps the moment is the most monumental opening gallery in the history of both Zam Kamil and the management of the CG Gallery. Just imagine, an exhibition event that 'only' lasted for ten days (6 to 15 May 2008) successfully sold nearly all the works on display, which is roughly about 30 works of painting. Fantastic. Such a glorious history that is difficult to reoccur. CG Gallery documentation regarding this single exhibition can be seen below.

Creative Process
The editor of the Asian Art News magazine, Ian Findlay, linked an admirer of Picasso and Vincent Willem van Gogh, Zam Kamil with Henri Matisse and Paul Cezanne. Not only Ian, even Wang Zineng, a Singapore-based curator and Cosmas D. Gozali of The Aryan Management had a similar opinion. Perhaps indeed there are similarities in the spirit forms of the figures of these two artists of different eras.

There are four fundamental things that Zam Kamil processed through his works, namely: 1. Figure; 2. Text; 3 Composition; 4. Process.

1. Figure
Figure is an integral part of the narrative works of Zam Kamil. The figures were intentionally lost in details. Nude, incomplete faces, unclear expression, unclear identity, some have indistinct gender and have no attributes as well. The audience is given the widest possible space for the imagination to fill that emptiness. However, later some of these figures wear clothes and even accessories. So what exactly is he trying to convey through these unclear figures?

Zam Kamil is apparently very interested in the gesture. Physical cues are all that he wants to convey through these figures. He often jokes, “When words could no longer be put into mouth as they become more and more accumulated and oppressive, it is the body that will spontaneously speak, shout, be furious and even continues to writhe, and at its peak becomes silent”.

Wang Zineng in his review on a solo exhibition entitled A (') postrophe asserted that the abstract and simple figures à la Zam Kamil recalls the fauvist manifesto at the beginning of the 20th century as echoed by Andre Derain and Henri Mattise whose whole works raised the expressive potential through colors and artistic freedom of academic realism.

2. Text
During his 'contemplative journey' and research on the cave of Leangleang, South Sulawesi, Zam Kamil found literature that later turned out to influence his creative process. The texts that seem to be pasted haphazardly, if further investigated, many quote the script of I La Galigo, a Bugis longest epic in the world. Some figures 'without gender' which sometimes appear in some of Zam Kamil’s paintings are also an evidence of his association with ancient Greek mythology and the Bissu phenomenon which until now is still a part of Makassar society.

In fact, this text could have been there long before the painting itself was born because so many works of Zam Kamil painting inspired by the poems he had written himself and the fruit of the hands of others. On the one hand, there are times when these texts were only the artist’s jabber. Its value is no longer meaning but turned into shape. The visible forms of the text were finally blended as contour and color. Furthermore, these texts, for Zam Kamil is like a string of prayer beads when remembrance echoed in his inner self. Or like the dialogue (read: prayer) a mother (read: Zam Kamil) who is pregnant, says to her future ‘child’.

3. Composition
In the case of Zam Kamil, Jules O Bawole, a curator alumnus of the Jakarta Arts Institute (Institut Kesenian Jakarta) once said that in addition to gestures, composition (contours and color) is Zam Kamil’s ultimate weapon to build rhythm and intonation into a poetic visual expression in his every work.

Ian Findlay then continues that Zam Kamil’s courage to indulge in colors like blue and green to contrast colors like red and yellow is precisely his special ability to bring the situation in his creation alive.

In later days, mature colors like red, green, blue, yellow are more frequently used. This is not surprising because of the choice of colors and composition, Zam Kamil clearly asserts that he is a fauvism follower.

4. Process
The process is, of course, has a relationship with the artist's inner experience. Perhaps to trace the creative process can be started from the development of Zam Kamil’s thematic works from 1990 when he first started his painting career up to now. He began with series such as “the wild thing”, “solitary”, “junkies”, journey, red and white, poetry, starting reinforcements, the lights to the last one is serial go green. So what is interesting about the subject of this thematic?

Zam Kamil’s observation journey is already described in the previous section. Of course, 'artistic behavior' gradually will crystallize and turn into inner experience over time. This inner experience is very unique and will never be the same between artists from each other - the impetus of the creative process itself. And are unique works not be born by individuals who are unique?

The themes of Zam Kamil’s paintings never stop. Even he does not have the clarity of time at all. It could be overlapped. This also means the figures in Zam Kamil’s paintings are still going to continue to explore shapes. He still will continue to be. The works that already exist need to be squeezed back into new works. Only he is to find his own essence (destiny).

Primadona, 1995

Primadona, 1999

This problem of the 'process' can be proved in the work entitled Kutunggu di Jakarta that was 'never finished' in 2006 but re-signed by the artist in 2010. Or have a look at the work of Primadona, which was originally signed in 1995, but then squeezed into the essence, 'simplified' and finally signed back in 1999. The naked forms will be returned to nudity.

Generasi yang Hilang, 2002

Generasi yang Hilang, 2002

It is not enough to stop there, for Zam Kamil the perfection of new works created precisely when there have been 'disturbances' attached. Conspicuous Graffiti. It may be because Zam Kamil did not believe that there is real perfection under the sun.

The birth of Zam Kamil‘s best paintings has gone such a long process and ins and outs of travel. And unfortunately a very valuable creative process is almost impossible to read in pieces the artist's curriculum vitae. It took a bit longer to trace the quality of a work because work is intact, strong and long lasting was ever born of the artist's strong personal as well, simply accept the blows life has been pretty well absorbed and other issues beyond the issue itself. So that's what this writing, namely to express what is implied.

Yogyakarta, October 2010
Dedi Yuniarto