Appreciation for Commercial Illustrations Reaches New Heights
People have begun to show enthusiasm towards the arts, which in turn opens the door to various artistic endeavours.
The Ethereal Art Exhibition was launched at Tin Alley with a traditional Chinese dragon dance today.
The ceremony of dragon awakening that involves the marking with red cinnabar on the head, eye, mouth and body, is part of an old tradition. It means to bring the dragon alive. In this age, dragon dance performances are more than just a cultural custom, it is a sport on a multiracial and multinational level.
Worthy of note is that our country also has one of the best ranking dragon dance sports teams from Johor.
The seven dancing dragons were brought to life by 70 spirited participants who danced merrily across the riverbank and around town.
A collection of commercial illustrations consisting of paintings and digital art were displayed in the exhibition space. Although many may have a dim view of commercial illustrations here in Malaysia as the field is often deemed unlikely to bear fruit, it is famed and widely recognised in other parts of the world.
According to the lecturer of Era Technology Communication Art and Design College and organiser of the Ethereal Art Exhibition, Leong Zhao Shun, Ethereal is a good start to broaden the community’s understanding of the subject and is a good form of exposure for the people of today. He also hopes that this event can boost the city’s tourism industry.
“Commercial illustration is a form of art that is used to transmit information to a specific audience. To convey the information to the public in an effective manner, you have to learn numerous skills from other art forms such as painting, drawing and photography.
“The art is a kind of painting design for goods or for customers. It’s largely seen in advertising, packaging, newspapers, book binding, games, computer networks among other fields.
“In the future, the role of illustrations as merely a visual support will expand. The constant development of advanced programming, online formats and cutting-edge digital techniques coupled with skilled innovative illustrators is resulting in new illustrative designs which are tactile, united and interactive,” he shared.
The primary job of multimedia designers is to create engaging content that will influence an audience’s perception. Designers employ creativity, skills and art tools to create an artistic array of content to make the most impact on an audience.
How do commercial illustrations help one stay in touch with their creative side?
It can express more explicit ideas, opinions, emotions and unique perspectives. With the development of multimedia, there is also a demand for illustration design in the dissemination of network information. Hence, the ideas that cannot be expressed in spoken words can be channelled to people through the intuitive language of illustration.
In addition to covering the cost of the exhibition, the funds collected from the sale of the students’ artworks will be used to assist underprivileged students and provide school supplies. A portion of the money will also be kept for future exhibitions to encourage the art form.
Era Technology Communication Art & Design is a Multimedia Design Education provider. Era Technology is the fastest growing private multimedia course provider in Ipoh. Era Technology College’s teaching methods are designed and updated according to the needs of the current market. Since the nation is growing rapidly with new technology, their lessons are 80% computer-based using the latest software.
Run by students from Era Technology Communication Art and Design under the lead of their lecturer, Leong Zhao Shun, the exhibition was jointly organised by Pertubuhan Kebajikan A2Z.
MBI Council Member for Zone 11 (Bercham), Albert Ho Wai Mun said that exposing the young ones to art can gradually bring it back to life. Various parties such as government agencies, non-profit organisations (NGOs) and students need to team up to instil a spirit of art appreciation.
Present were Chairperson of Tourism Perak Management Sdn Bhd, Dato’ Kamil bin Dato Shafie and CEO of Tourism Perak, Nurmalis Musa among others.
The Ethereal Art Exhibition will be ongoing from March 26 till April 3, from 10am to 6pm daily.
Gisele Soo
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