I have yet to meet a more humble and down to earth artist whose works are in great demand and whose name has become one of the most well heard of among Art collectors. Maybe i am wrong, perhaps he was nice to the three of us who visited him on this particular day.
Najjar Musawwir impressed Shahriman as much as Shahrima impressed Najjar and they hit it off as though they had been friends most of their lives. Then again Najjar has that way about him that opens up the most stoic in our encounters with artists when we travelled.
The visit to Shahriman's studio was full of surprises from his Harley Davidson to his collection of antique Malay weapons, his sculptures and his life story to tell.I fell in love with the man immediately when I was introduced to him, he reminded me of a few of my friends in the East Coast in Kuala Terengganu.
Here is another soul tormented by anger and confusion at an early age and forged his way out of the gloom of darkness and suicidal tendencies into the light of creative energy and he attacked his demons with gusto to produce what seemed like fiery explosions of anger.
But the man is most serene and calm when you are in his presence, ever polite and like and innocent mind is very inquisitive thirsting to learn more of that which is there to be known about himself through art.
It was indeed an honor to be in the presence of a very young artist who is no doubt has a long and productive road of creativity ahead of him for i believe what he has created thus far has barely touched the surface of his creative reservoir.
His reform into Islam might have instilled into him the patience and dilligence to deal with that which has haunted his soul, whatever the case may be Tengku Shahriman in my mind is one artist who has found his salvation through his expression in his artworks.
I first enjoyed Shahriman's works when I visited the Petronas Gallery where he had his Solo Exhibition. The pieces just screamed for vengence with their fiery and sharp pointed jaggered edges piercing from every direction at me.
They also reminded me H.R. Giger's works, the Swiss Artist who did the design for the movie Alien, although Giger's is more sensuous and often obscene and vulger in nature in most cases.
Shahriman's creation are more surrealistice if not demonic in nature with a cerain amount reptilian quality is some pieces most of which evokes a sense of forebode and awe. They also generate a feeling of a raging battle in progress somewhere in the psyche pieces of schrapnels and splintered weapons manifesting outwardly through his works.
Symbolisms and iconoclastic images are fused together as though the mind has regurgitated from itself all that has been ingested and fermented through spiritual ignorance and nurotic inclinations; spit out and melted down to form new images forever petrified in cold steel.
From his furnance on to his anvil, he hammered and shaped distorted beings as though these were waiting to be liberated from the cold metal that they originated from. Perhaps in the process he was also liberating the very demons that had haunted him in his past.
For whatever reason for his creative action Tengku Shahriman has emerged from his dark tunnel into the light and this is reflected upon his ever smiling and gentle face like a man who had a brush with death and live to smile about it.
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