ACQUIRE, UNDERSTANDING

PAM PUBLIC LECTURE

BY MOHD. HATTA ISMAIL

I was pleased to have a chance to attend to a talk by Mohd. Hatta Ismail few days ago, in that talk Hatta talks about “understanding”. Where he says that, it is the idea of relating senses to objects and spaces towards a consciousness allowing greater insights into art, object, form and spaces. This notion follows the gesture of sketching, of laying and repeating line to bring about a deeper appreciation of those lines, and of the object/subject being drawn.

He started off the talk by showing a series of models and artworks he did in the past. I was at first, quite confused and not knowing what is it that he was trying to deliver. But from what I’ve seen, is that I could see his determination of perfection in his works. First, he showed us a series of artworks, made from bowl. In his explanations, he said that each of the bowls he created has a sense of uniqueness in its own way, each brings a different sense of feeling. And that is done by the different tone of color and textures created with all sorts of treatment. From this I felt that it is true that the quality of feeling is in fact hard to determine because it is so subjective, and to bring that out, it should be done by adjective. Hatta said that art and abstract can be adjective, and I think that is why he puts so much time and effort into developing the sense of arts, to develop a greater understanding toward objects and also because art is a way of expressions.

He did have a lot of trial and errors, including all the bowls artworks where he said to be a series of experiment, are all a part of explorations to the sense or art. As Hatta progress through his speech we can he brings us closer and deeper the understanding of objects and then arts, and further on to forms and spaces. After showing his artworks of bowls and plates, he then proceeds to his paintings. He said that his paintings are not abstract art, and it is an experiment and exploration he did, where he started to draw without any apparent reason, only to search for a deeper appreciation of those lines he drawn.

Further on, he started explaining his sense of design, through his thought and appreciation of objects and art. It is at this point I started to understand what he was trying to show us. That we should explore in our own way to find a deeper sense of understanding towards objects and arts, and to find that appreciations towards it. Cause like an abstract drawing, design sometimes is difficult to simply put into words, and put into the shape of architecture, or even the layout of space, it is the small details that brings us a certain satisfaction and appreciation towards it that sometimes are unexplainable. And that could not be simply achieved easily, it takes time and efforts, in numerous experiments and explorations towards small details, and it takes great understanding and great insight towards arts, objects, forms, and space. The understanding of objects and spaces are furthered through this practice of appreciation rather than the conflicting interpretations inherent within them.

All in all, I do feel that this lecture does brings me through a lot of thinking, as it does while we were designing, I feel that everyone has different ways of looking at things, and art sense is a good platform to find an appreciation and understanding towards objects, and we should develop our own by focusing primarily on the intellectual functions of objects and visual expressions of color and texture, to assist in the orchestration of objects and spaces, which are only a natural reaction to architects intent. Furthermore, as a student, I think there’s also one good lesson we can take from Hatta is the persistence to perfections, through trials and errors, experiments, explorations, I think that is what’s more important than anything.