To be Fair

It takes time to move mountain

I gave up. No gallery was interested to stage a student art exhibition. I called my art teacher Apollo that he needed to step in now and activate his connections in the art world. I believed galleries would give him face since he is an established artist himself.

But I had one last number yet to call. It was a newly opened gallery hidden away amongst the shop houses at Bangsar Baru. The rain was pouring heavily when I arrived. The gallery was at the attic and a guy with pale face and big eyes was standing out there puffing away. He reminded me of alien and I secretly hoped that he would not be the gallery manager. Thank God he was not. The manager Lew was talking on the phone with much waving of his arm while pacing up and down his room.

His phone conversation seemed to take forever. I decided to sneak to the attic where the gallery was. It was a gallery cum bar. A grand piano stood elegantly at the corner next to the balcony. The walls were adorned with paintings from a female artist who resided in France and Asia. Her theme was about nature and her approach was abstract. The primarily red tone of her paintings gave the whole gallery a warm glow despite the stormy weather outside. There was an interesting interpretation from her on red lanterns during the Mooncake festival. It seems to me that a lot of westerners were indeed fascinated by the culture of Asia.

Lew was pure business. He rattled on the whole list of cost items for an exhibition, the sales commission, the publicity, the press, the radio and the whole work. I thought he would make a very good wedding planner too. He wanted to know how many pieces I intended to exhibit and the dimensions. I knew my classmates well. It would take another two weeks for them to take photographs and submit details of their work. Hence I told him I would come back when I have collected all the work.

Deep in my heart, I knew that this place was too chic for a student art exhibition of sporadic subjects. I made a mental note that may be one day I would have my solo exhibition here.

posted by Vegie @ 10:02 AM