Jumaldi Alfi

signed in English, titled and dated 2010 on the reverse

Private Collection, Asia

The work is in good condition overall, as is the canvas. There are indications of wear and handling around the edges and margins. There is one (3.5 cm) minute water mark on the left corner near the margin and one small repair on the corner (on the painted frame area). There are faint vertical stretcher marks between the letters N and E, in the middle of the letter V, and between E and R. The paint layers are in good condition overall. Any surface inconsistencies is due to the artist's style. Please note that it was not examined under ultraviolet light.
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“…the Blackboard Series reflects Alfi’s fascination and admiration with the work of post-War German artists such as Anselm Kiefer, Kippenberger, and Georg Baselitz. He finds himself drawn to their obsession with history. Their meditations on unanswered and perhaps, unanswerable questions about German militarism haunt him as deeply as West Sumatra’s sanguine past… He sees the extent to which a national trauma has inspired a magnificent aesthetic response – more than a match for the terrible tragedies charted.

 …Uncluttered and clean-lined, the [Blackboard Series] would appear to be a total break with his previous densely-worked, expressionistic canvasses. With the new series, the artist has also been more direct in terms of his chosen message – witness the direct quotations from art luminaries such as Beuys and Ruscha…

 There are, however, underlying connections with the earlier work… For a start, Alfi never loses sight of his love of painting. His work is infused with the joy and playfulness inherent in the process of putting brush to canvas. Indeed, the actual blackboards with their faux frames are paradoxical. They tease the onlooker. From the onset, they would appear simple, even easy to paint or frivolous. In reality, the intense inky-black of the surface and the muffled white of the chalky words require layers and layers of carefully applied paint – each requiring a laborious finish.”

 (Karim Raslan, Jumaldi Alfi: Life/Art #101: Never Ending Lesson, exh. cat., Singapore, 2010, unpaginated)