Page 104 - The Guide To Sarawak

102 THE ARTS
Raphael Scott
Ahbeng, one of the elder statesmen of Sarawak art, trained
at the Bath Academy of Art, UK, and began his career as an art lecturer at Batu Lintang Teachers’ Training College in Kuching.
He is a household name in Malaysia, and his works do well at auctions worldwide.
He has also made a name in broadcasting as a news-reader and presenter for RTM Sarawak.
A Bidayuh from Singai near Kuching, Raphael has been painting since the age of 10. He is best known for his abstracts in oil and acrylic, where his confident use of colours captures the moods of Sarawak’s landscapes. He is also a fine water colourist and works occasionally in pencil and ink.
Painter and broadcaster Raphael Scott Ahbeng at work in his tropical garden studio.
The mountains of Southwest Sarawak
form a brooding background to Raphael
Scott Ahbeng’s joyous depiction of a
regatta. inspiration.
Gawai Kenyalang (Hornbill Festival): Sylvester Jussem draws on Sarawak’s rich cultural heritage for much of his
Sylvester Wielding
Jussem is a Bidayuh
artist who studied at
the MARA Institute of Technology, Malaysia
and earned a Masters
in Fine Art at the
prestigious Pratt
Institute School of Art
& Design, New York. He
is currently lecturing in
the Faculty of Applied and Creative Arts at UNIMAS and is an Honorary Curator at the Sarawak Museum.
Sylvester uses oil and
Jussem is also noted for his imaginative use of underwater themes.
acrylic for his larger iconic works, successfully blending Sarawak motifs like hornbill effigies and burial poles with bold splashes of rainforest
colours. His watercolours focus on Sarawak’s indigenous people, intensely studied yet accessible and revealing.