ART REVIEW : Portraits of Malaysian Heritage, Identity

Malaysia makes us think of a steamy jungle paradise, exotic and backward, but since the 16th Century it has been home to important ports where far-flung cultures--the Chinese, English, East Indian, Dutch and Portuguese--mixed it up and duked it out in the hope of controlling land and sea.

“Contemporary Malaysian Painting,” at the Pacific Asian Museum in Pasadena (to Dec. 31), confirms both the area’s rich ethnicity and its play for a new, more sophisticated cultural identity.

Although most of the 41 prominent artists on view were trained in such major international art centers as Berlin, New York and Paris, the paintings reflect a distinctly Eastern vision. Contours are rounder, colors more florid, and there’s the love of pattern that marks Eastern art from Islam to China. There’s also a heavy spiritual bent from Hindu and Buddhist heritages and, finally, a strong connection with nature that comes from rural existence and dependence on the land.

Paintings like “Mother Earth” by Jin Leng Yeoh or “Watermargin” by the self-taught Hon Yin Tang are hazy lateral bands of intense hues suggesting soft, misty Technicolor horizons. Kam Kow Choong studied at Pratt University, and in “Rhythm of Growth” he borrows American collage to make an arrangement of brown pulpy discs worked to look like the cross sections of an aged tree.

Several works align themselves with patterned abstractions of modernism, but these tend to be less cerebral and more gutsy that anything the Western avant-garde has put out.

Ismail Mohd Zain’s “Meanwhile Tam Came In . . . “ and Sulaiman Esa’s “Nurani” are diligent but teeter close to craft. The best-patterned abstractions are in batik; of these, Syed Shaharuddin Bakeri’s is a gem.

Ibrahim Hussein evokes Eastern spiritualism with “Ripples,” a luminous abstract asteroid suspended in an expanse of royal blue. “Heart of the Matter” by Chicago Art Institute-trained Syed Ahmad Jamal is a surprisingly appealing combination of hard-edge pyramidal shapes and inscrutable atmospheres. More literal is Syed Thajudeen’s “The Beginning” with its distorted Hindu deities overseeing the inception of good and evil.

There are also some inspired eccentricities that defy categories. Amron Omar’s eloquent self-portrait is one; Zulkifli Dahalan’s Rimbaudian overview of spindly nude villagers picnicking, smoking and cavorting is another.