Welcome to the Malaysian Arts

Latif Maulan: Beware, Koleksi Bank Negara Malaysia , 2006

Fantastic photorealism artworks by Latif Maulan, featuring 30 pieces of brilliance photorealism paintings flower title "The bold and brilliance flower". Holding art exhibition on the web.
(PRWEB) March 18 2004--Abd Latif Maulan, whose stunning artworks can be viewed at the blog http://latifmaulan.blogspot.com This talented malaysian has been displaying his work on the net for the past two years and has recieved an encouraging response from collectors and art appreciators from as far as United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Dubai, Hong Kong, Mexico and etc.

Latif who has passion for photorealism paintings, is currently holding an online art exhibition entitled The Bold And Brilliance Flower in his website. Surfers can enjoy beautiful images of nature, fauna and flora in the section called Exhibition and also portfolio.

Taking a photograph to use in the process of making photorealist paintings can seem like a straightforward task. However many decisions have to be made concerning every aspect of the image. Normally when involved in the process of making a painting, many decisions can be made and unmade throughout, however with photorealism all these decisions are made when the shutter is pressed.

A photograph can be either a 'good' photograph or just a 'snapshot'. In fact both approaches can yield images with appealing qualities. But as is the general rule with photography, many shots have to be taken in order to get just one usable picture.

There are many artifacts of the photographic image which are unique to it. For example, depth of field, lens effects such as flare or perspective distortion, a compressed tonal range compared with how we see the scene with the eye, sharpness is not consistent across the image and also depends on contrast, colours can seem artificial and have a narrower gamut compared with how we see naturally. These things can be used positively to add to the effect of the finished painting. It is as important to choose an image which exhibits these artifacts in a beneficial way as it is to provide good foundation elements. Choosing wisely can improve the effect of the finished painting.

With most of the decisions regarding the appearance of the final image already made, the source photograph needs to be assessed in an objective way and to be seen as a huge matrix of colours and tonal values. If it were digitised, this is exactly what it would be, and even as a colour print or transparency the grain structure is still essentially a looser matrix of elements which have a colour and tonal value.

On achieving this objective view and seeing the photograph in this way, it is then possible to move back towards seeing the elements within the photograph as objects again. In doing this it is possible to be able to control the way in which the working photograph is viewed in order to be able to 'switch' in and out of these two different ways of seeing. This is required because during the painting process, in the interests of expediency it is useful to treat areas within the composition as 'objects'. This is purely for practical reasons as it is important to match colours and families of colours across 'objects' that may extend across the composition.

The process of making a photorealist painting is esentially making an enlargement of an original photograph. So whats the point ? well it could be argued that if you made a photographic enlargement from a transparency or negative using the well established methods, the result would be the equivalent of a photorealist painting. Of course the end result when compared with a photorealist painting would look superficially similar, but closer examination would reveal that all the enlargement would show is its physical limitations. Whereas with a photorealist painting we are seeing something that could never exist by any other means. Because no matter how objective the artist is, there will always be 'interpretation'. It is this subtle quality which gives the photorealist work its beguiling qualities.