Sivam Selvaratnam, A Life in Art

Dear Friends,
The book launch of ‘Sivam Selvaratnam: A Life in Art’, at the National Art Gallery KL, on 5 July 2024, was a grand affair. Crowds started to stream in, overflowing The Balai to celebrate the legacy of Sivam Selvaratnam, a pioneer Malaysian artist, and a woman at that!
Many of us sense that Sivam’s legacy is yet to be fully acknowledged and the book will be an undeniable testimony and document of her contribution to forging a more comprehensive identity of Malaysian Modern Visual Art.
As an artist, the late Sivam Selvaratnam was very much ahead of her time. Her works, though executed in the 60s, exuded a distinctive modern ‘aura’. She was truly original and modern in spirit.
The attractive book, a significant creative input of artist Sivarajah Natarajan together with an array of writers, provided an impressive content marking Sivam’s contribution to Malaysian Modern Visual Art.
The highlight of the event was the much awaited keynote address by the Guest of Honour, Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz, a much anticipated presence of the event. Rafidah did not disappoint. She herself is a painter and knew both Sivam and her husband Dr Selvaratnam. Tan Sri gave an insightful clue on how she herself had learnt to appreciate ‘modern’ abstraction in visual art and how artists are able to distill their own intense feelings in the manner they communicate the message of their works to others.
Rafidah capped her speech with a strong appeal of the need to stop the descent into adopting extreme and intolerant values which have no place in our multi-cultural nation.
Congratulations to Dr Selvaratnam and family for their admirable effort to celebrate the memory and legacy of the late Sivam Selvaratnam on the 10th anniversary of her demise.
Sutra