A scratch on concrete. A faded mark on the ground. A damaged wall that has slowly become part of the scenery. We see these things almost every day, but rarely stop to wonder how they got there, or what they might have witnessed. In Runut, Fauzan Fuad invites us to look at these seemingly ordinary traces a little longer.
Presented at Galeri Sasha, Runut brings together twelve works that move away from painting as a conventional image. Instead of asking the surface to represent a particular place, Fauzan allows it to carry something of the places he has encountered. Rough textures, layered marks, muted colours and industrial qualities recall the physical character of urban environments without directly depicting them. The works do not show Kuala Lumpur, but there is a sense of the city within them: concrete, friction, wear and constant movement.
The title Runut, referring to a trace or track left behind, offers a way into the exhibition. A trace tells us that something happened, even when we can no longer know exactly what. During my conversation with Fauzan, he spoke about noticing marks on the ground and wondering who had left them. It could have been a person, an animal, or someone who had passed through the same place years before. The answer is impossible to know. What remains is simply the mark.
Perhaps this is where the quiet strength of Runut lies. The works hold evidence without giving us the whole story. They remind us that absence does not always mean nothing is left behind.
Fauzan's relationship with skateboarding adds another dimension to this idea. He has been skateboarding since the age of thirteen, and through it, the city becomes something he physically encounters. A staircase, pavement, railing or concrete ledge is no longer simply part of the architecture. It becomes something to move against, across and through. The repeated contact between skateboard and surface gradually changes the material, leaving behind a patina of use.
The mark, then, is not simply made by the artist. It is produced through contact.
There is a natural connection here to the history of modern painting, particularly artists who began to treat the surface itself as something worthy of attention. Art Informel, for instance, challenged conventional ideas of beauty through roughness, materiality and irregularity, while Abstract Expressionism placed importance on the physical act of making. In Jackson Pollock's paintings, movement is not hidden behind the image; it becomes part of what the surface records.
Fauzan's practice does not attempt to repeat these histories, but there is a similar interest in allowing the material to speak. His surfaces emerge through an exchange between intention, movement and the behaviour of the materials themselves.
This becomes especially apparent in his decision to stop using brushes.
Fauzan Fuad’s artworks during his residency at Rimbun Dahan. (Photo credit: Rimbun Dahan)
During his time at Rimbun Dahan, Fauzan experimented with rollers and industrial materials, becoming increasingly interested in textures that could carry something of the environments around him. Without the brush, the relationship between control and chance begins to shift. Materials can spread, build up, scrape against one another and behave in ways that cannot always be predicted. Yet the work is never completely left to chance. Fauzan decides where the layers accumulate, when the surface feels dense enough and, ultimately, when the work is finished.
What looks spontaneous is therefore the result of negotiation.
This is also where the question of rawness becomes interesting. Concrete, exposed surfaces, industrial materials and signs of wear have become familiar visual languages of the city. They can easily become an aesthetic. But in Fauzan's case, rawness seems less like something he has chosen to imitate and more like something he has lived alongside.
Speaking about his interest in brutalism, rawness and urban forms, he told me, “aku hidup didalam itu.”
one of Fauzan Fuad’s artworks at Galeri Sasha. (Photo credit: Hafiz Aiman)
The statement is simple, but it says a lot. The city is not an image he is trying to recreate from a distance. It is part of his everyday experience, something he moves through and encounters physically.
This also marks a shift from his earlier POV series, which Fauzan described as being more concerned with structure, architecture and colour. In Runut, those elements become less fixed. His time at Rimbun Dahan opened up space for experimentation, allowing unfamiliar materials and surroundings to enter his process.
For me, this makes Runut feel less like an attempt to define what Fauzan's work should look like and more like an acknowledgement that the practice is still moving.
That movement extends beyond the canvas. During our interview, Fauzan told me, “mark making ni akan aku bawa sampai mati sebab perjalanan kita itu sendiri adalah mark-making bagi aku.”
It is perhaps the line that stays with me most after seeing the exhibition.
If our journey itself is a form of mark-making, then traces are not limited to what we deliberately leave behind. They exist in the places we pass through, the people we encounter and the small changes that happen through repetition. A pavement becomes worn because people have walked across it. A railing changes because hands have touched it. A wall carries scratches from encounters we will never know about.
These things are easy to overlook precisely because they are so familiar.
We are used to moving through cities quickly. Buildings become backgrounds, streets become routes, and surfaces become things that simply serve a function. Runut gently interrupts that habit. It asks us to notice what usually sits at the edge of our attention.
There is something melancholic about that act of noticing A trace can tell us that someone was there, while also reminding us that they are no longer there. The mark remains, but the person who made it may be long gone. What survives is only a fragment, detached from the story that produced it.
Perhaps that is why the works do not feel as though they are trying to explain themselves.
Fauzan does not resolve every mark into a particular memory or assign every texture to a specific place. Instead, he leaves enough uncertainty for the viewer to enter. As he told me, “Jika masih ada persoalan, itu bermakna karya tersebut hidup.”
The uncertainty becomes part of the experience.
Maybe a surface does not need to remember in the way we do. Perhaps it only needs to hold the evidence of having been touched, crossed, damaged, repaired or changed. We then come along and try to imagine what happened before us.
In that sense, Runut is not only about painting. It is about learning to look at what we normally pass by.
A worn pavement may carry the memory of thousands of footsteps. A damaged wall may hold encounters that nobody recorded. A scratch might mean nothing at all, or it might be the only remaining evidence that someone was once there.
The city is full of these quiet fragments.
We are constantly leaving traces behind, just as others have left theirs for us to find. Perhaps all it takes is slowing down enough to notice.
Comments
Post a Comment