Next to “K-II” is “MXP”, which features a circular wooden frame at the top with its face painted black, and, below that, several thick, black strips of canvas with simple, white-coloured geometric shapes bolted onto them. It looks like it could be a grandfather clock, or some kind of flow chart for rivers, ending at the big basin of the sea. Another work looks like a white frog, with stiff bended arms like wooden clothespins, titled “Layang” (kite). In between “MXP” and “Layang” is a smaller print on wood titled “M.I.A”, of a creature with leaf-like wings, or fins, buzzing lazily upwards: perhaps a fly to feed the layang-shaped frog.
SG. is an abbreviation for sungai, the Malay word for river – an elemental life-force that the exhibition centres around as its primary inspiration. Tomi grew up in his grandmother’s house by a river in Kuala Kubu Bharu, Selangor and so
SG. is his way of “going back to his roots”, which is an interesting reaction to having just completed a residency in a foreign land. In London, he also lived by the River Thames, a murky, clogged-up river snaking through 346km of London, reflecting back the corruption of the city’s industrial development and underpinning the collective imagination of Londoners since the time of Dickens.