NSW Visual Arts Preliminary and HSC Syllabus Focus:
Cultural Frame, Structural Frame, Conceptual Framework (Artist/World)

Artist Information:

Born in 1992 in Pattani, Thailand, Kusifiyah Nibuesa lives and works between Pattani and Bangkok. Her intricately detailed 3D reliefs in cut paper transport us into the artist’s world of Thailand’s far south, close to the border with Malaysia. The region is often associated with the continuing religious and ethnic unrest of the South Thailand Insurgency, however, Nibuesa’s work is hopeful. In the face of the ever-present possibility of violence, she emphasises instead a peaceful multiculturalism. Working with cut paper, printing and stencilling techniques to create immersive images of daily life, the artist invites us to enter a world in which all Thai citizens – Muslims, Buddhists, and Chinese – co-exist in harmony.

A member of the Muslimah Collective, a collaborative group of five female Muslim artists from Pattani, Nibuesa explores her Muslim heritage through highly realistic, figurative works depicting the life of the busy streets and bustling markets of Pattani. She focuses on textile patterns as markers of identity – men wearing batik sarongs and loose shirts push carts laden with bags of rice or market produce, and veiled women seated behind wicker baskets overflowing with fish, fruit, vegetables and spices wear intricately patterned robes.

Nibuesa takes photographs of her local environment as references for her work, but alters the patterns and textures on clothing, bags and boxes. The works balance aesthetically appealing surface patterning with a careful attention to how the forms and figures overlap, casting shadows that heighten their realism. Each work suggests a narrative – tiny vignettes of life that might otherwise go unnoticed are enlarged and rendered newly significant. Removed from their backgrounds, the focus is on the individual. They float against the gallery wall, requiring us to notice every detail and to think about the lives of the people she selects as her subjects. We wonder about their backstories; about the joys and hardships they encounter. Multicultural, The Cart (both 2021), Deep South Market (2016) and Deep South Market 2 (2022) celebrate the daily life and hard work of ordinary people in this conflicted region.

Nibuesa’s process is complex and laborious. She told the gallery how she makes these works, step-by-step.

1. She drafts the picture of her work on a piece of A4 paper and uses PhotoScape to enlarge the picture to actual size of the complete work so that she can print the draft into separate pieces of A4 paper.

2. She creates the texture on the cardboard by applying the mixture of tissue paper, glue and water and on the cardboard and drying the cardboard in sun. Then she sprays the cardboard with a mixture of brown fabric dye and water to make it brown and dries the cardboard in sun again.

3. The artist uses the final draft printed on the separate pieces of A4 paper to draw the outline of the picture onto plywood and the prepared brown cardboard. The plywood is cut according to the outline and attached to the timber. Here is the link to the video on her Instagram showing how she prepares the plywood base: https://www.instagram.com/p/CE9oK8-F_tM/. The brown cardboard is also cut into small pieces (faces, fish, baskets, tables, etc.) according to the draft for further steps.

4. Kusofiyah explores and experiments with different materials and techniques to create textures, colours and patterns as well as the projection of figures and elements in her work as in the list and the pictures below. Textures include the mixture of tissue paper, glue and water + brown fabric dye. Pigments include mangosteen peel (mainly for complexion), brown fabric dye, printmaking colour, clay/rock/dust/soil. Patterns include sarong, bleached sarong, plastic bag. Techniques include printmaking, stencilling, papercutting, weaving, and hole punching.

For Teachers

There are many interesting ways to incorporate Kusifiyah Nibuesa’s work into Stage 6 Case Studies. Two possibilities are suggested here:

1. Nibuesa’s focus on the everyday and the patterns and textures of daily life invites comparison with the works of Chinese artists Dong Yuan, Gao Rong and Liu Xiaodong.

Dong Yuan is a painter who creates installations of hundreds of separate small canvases representing rooms in her own apartment and her grandmother’s house. Like Nibuesa, she navigates tensions between tradition and the world of contemporary China, with all its complexities and contradictions.

Gao Rong works with textiles and embroidery to create sculptural simulacra of everyday objects, including a full-size replica of her grandparents’ humble rural home. Her work is often prompted by a sense of nostalgia for what has been lost in China’s headlong rush to modernity and urbanisation.

Liu Xiaodong, one of China’s greatest figurative painters, has often focused on the lives of the “lao bai xing” (“old hundred names” – meaning ordinary people). Like Manet, he is described as a “painter of modern life” who aims to “see people as they really are”. Some of his subjects have included the workers building the Three Gorges Dam, Mongolian horse traders, sex workers or nightclub hostesses, old school friends from his rural hometown, and New Yorkers during the global pandemic in 2020.

References:

Gao Rong and Dong Yuan
‘In Grandmother’s House’, Ran Dian, 2012, available at http://www.randian-online.com/np_feature/in-grandmothers-house/

Gao Rong
‘Gao Rong’ in Artist Profile, 2014 available at  https://artistprofile.com.au/gao-rong/
Gao Rong at Eli Klein Fine Art http://www.galleryek.com/artists/gao-rong

Dong Yuan
‘A Short History of Everything: the painted world of Dong Yuan’, in The Art Life Jul 03, 2017 available at  http://theartlife.com.au/2017/a-short-history-of-everything-the-painted-world-of-dong-yuan/

Liu Xiaodong
Liu Xiaodong at Lisson Gallery https://www.lissongallery.com/artists/liu-xiaodong

All three artists have works in the White Rabbit Collection, with more information available on the website at https://judithneilsonprojects.com.au/project/white-rabbit-collection

2. Kusofiyah Nibuesa’s emphasis on her Muslim faith and heritage invites comparisons with the work of Australian artists Abdul Abdullah and Nasim Nasr. As a Muslim living within a primarily Buddhist society and in a region of ethnic and religious tension, there are parallels with the discomfort and alienation experienced by diasporic peoples, including Muslim artists in Australia whose work is concerned with the experiences of the “other”.

References:

Abdul Abdullah
https://abdulabdullah.com/home.html
https://abdulabdullah.com/links.html
https://www.mca.com.au/artists-works/artists/abdul-abdullah/
https://yavuzgallery.com/artists/abdul-abdullah/

Nasim Nasr
http://www.nasimnasr.com/
http://www.nasimnasr.com/essays-and-exhibition-catalogues-1

For Students

These questions can be considered during or after a gallery visit, or from observing the works online.

• What has Kusofiyah Nibuesa changed in order to focus on specific aspects of her subject?

• What is the aesthetic and conceptual effect of these changes?

• Why do you think the artist felt it was important to work in 3 dimensions, rather than creating flat works on paper?

• How do you think she wants her audience to respond to her subject?

• What is the effect of the size and scale of Deep South Market 2 and Multicultural on the audience?

• How would the viewer’s experience of the work be different if the artist had included the background of the marketplace, as in her photographs? (see the images below)

Kusofiyah Nibuesa has grown up in a region of Thailand where life is very unstable, and culture, religion, and ethnic identity are politicised. Armed conflict between the government and rebel groups has continued for many years. However, the artist says her aim is to highlight aspects of her specifically female experience and her religious/cultural identity as a Muslim in a primarily Buddhist culture. She wants to emphasise hope, honour, integrity, dignity and goodness rather than focusing on violence or politics.

• Looking at the four works in “Other Possible Worlds”, what aspects of life and culture are revealed?

• Why do you think the artist has made a deliberate choice to remove individuals or foreground figures from their background?

• Does this decision strengthen her intended message of peaceful co-existence and the rhythms of daily life? How?

• Describe how the artist has used paper in different ways in these works – how many different techniques or methods can you find?

• Why do you think she has chosen to work with paper rather than other sculptural materials?

• What if these works were made of painted steel, or wood? How would their meanings be different?