National flag takes centrestage at art show

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A MID-life crisis has turned successful architect Indra Ramanathan into an artist to satisfy his creativity.

The 42-year-old began the journey four years ago in 2009 with the 09.09.09 installation which featured the nine cities that had a great impact on his life.

The following year, Ramanathan’s 10.10.10 highlighted his religion with the 10 Commandments.

The third installation, 11.11.11, which is being exhibited at the Bangsar Shopping Centre (BSC) lobby foyer until Sunday, is also special and explores his patriotic side.

The exhibition themed Unum features 11 pieces of mixed-medium artworks, which use the Malaysian flag’s four colours — blue, white, red and yellow.

Creative outlet: Indra’s 11.11.11 display will be on show at the Bangsar Shopping Centre until Nov 13.

With the use of such strong colours, the artworks are also bold in texture, colour and message for a man who only wears black most of the time.

“I sorted out the theme but I was still looking for a symbol that represented Malaysia as a whole and that is easily recognised by all with a strong visual impact, and the flag came to my mind.

“It became my muse for this collection and I did research on it,” he said at his art space in SS2 in Petaling Jaya recently.

His research eventually brought him to a flag maker.

Interestingly, Ramanathan’s work is focused on the flag maker’s original 11-pointed star and 11-stripe flag, which was created in 1950.

Perhaps, it also serves as a good reminder to many Malaysians on the original flag itself apart from staying relevant for 11.11.11.

Like his previous collections, the new installation also has the signature stamp coding in each piece of work.

These codes, which uniquely represent Malaysia in one way or another, add up to the identity he is trying to create.

However, Ramanathan skips the codes on pieces which have direct elements of the flag (stripes and crescent) as they speak for themselves.

“Fundamentally, we are all coded and that’s why I have some unique codes in these pieces,” said Ramanathan, while pointing to an aviation code 9M on a piece.

Another piece had the telephone country code of +60 on it.

Citing that his collectors were mostly corporations, the self-taught artist also believes that there are endless possibilities in his artworks.

He had used ideas from the 09.09.09 collection for airline company AirAsia’s Jakarta office.

“So it’s really endless. Who knows what might come out of 11.11.11. Maybe even a musical,” he said.