Sun Jingfei, Desmond Mah’s “Language of Immigrants”: 马福民个展 述说个人“移民语言, Lianhe Zaobao Newspaper, Singapore, Life culture and art section. Pg. 03, 29 Dec 2023
Original review in Chinese
Translated into English
Ma Fumin’s solo exhibition talks about his personal “language of immigration”
Ma Fumin, also known as Desmond Mah, is a Singapore-born artist who currently resides in Australia. He frequently uses his artwork to delve into the themes of cultural hybridity and diaspora. His piece, “The Terraformed Sanctuary,” is a prime example of this.
Ma Fumin likens the creative process of mixed media to traditional Chinese paper craftsmanship, which combines paper cutting, painting, pasting, and paper modelling. He employs various materials such as acrylic paint, rice paper, headphones, and luggage to investigate immigrant identity and offer an alternative narrative voice for identity in diasporic contexts.
With Kinmen ancestry and later immigrated to Australia, Ma Fumin is deeply conscious of cultural hybridity and the fluidity of identity. His self-portraits often depict his feelings of displacement and marginalization after immigrating to Australia in the 1980s. The lingering sense of cultural dislocation and hybridity has become a central theme in his work.
In 2023, Ma Fumin held a local solo exhibition titled “When These Roots Encounter Rocks,” inviting audiences to explore his multiple identities and the Chinese immigrant experience within the context of diaspora.
His artwork often features root-like lines growing out of the human head, symbolizing the powerlessness of separation and drifting. This is evident in pieces like “Rooted Resolve,” “The Escape from ‘Nowhere’,” and “My Left Hand Operates at 25% Capacity.”
In “My Left Hand Operates at 25% Capacity,” a left arm made of lines lies flat in a suitcase, with Ma Fumin’s full name in Chinese, which is difficult to use in the English-speaking world, engraved on the palm.
In the work “I Exist Because You Exist,” the moving tongue, triggered by induction, represents the state of speech and aphasia. Ma Fumin has invented his personal “immigration language” by testing the boundaries of artistic media. He mixes acrylic paint to create three-dimensional lines shaped like plant roots. Of the 12 works displayed in the exhibition, only one is completed on canvas, while the others are mixed with acrylic paint, rice paper, and other materials.
Ma Fumin has expressed a preference for using rice paper over canvas, as it is not only closer to Asian culture but also offers more flexibility and is not limited by the canvas format. The raw material of rice paper contains rice straw fibers, reflecting the oriental rice culture and timeless resilience. Ma Fumin incorporates this spirit into his paintings, with the roots growing out of the rice paper forming the embodiment of his ghostly body.
Ma Fumin sees the creative process of mixed media as akin to traditional Chinese paper-making craftsmanship, which encompasses paper-cutting, painting, pasting, and paper modelling. His childhood experiences in his grandfather’s Lotus Third Prince Temple served as his artistic enlightenment. The paper supplies used for sacrifices, as well as the faces and expressions of cultural relics and statues, have influenced his creative style.
His works, with their blend of tones and lines, evoke complex emotions of depression, confusion, and curiosity. Despite having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Ma Fumin’s neurodiverse thinking has not only posed challenges for mixing colours but also inspired him to use bold colours.
It’s interesting to note that popular elements frequently appear in his works. For instance, “True Flames Within” features a Godzilla living in its belly, symbolizing a scream from the heart. Traces of fast-food culture, Super Mario, Internet memes, and emojis can also be found in his other exhibits. These elements, drawn from different stages of his life, have become his creative nutrients. Ma Fumin views emojis as the universal language of modern people, transcending skin colour and culture.