A Penang Portfolio
“A Penang Portfolio” is a collection of sepia-toned ink illustrations of Georgetown, Penang, by Bryn Barnard, published in JMBRAS Vol. 94 (2021).
Summary
The portfolio comprises sixteen ink-on-illustration-board paintings created between 1983 and 2003, depicting the streetscapes, shophouses, and architectural details of Georgetown during the era of rent control, before its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Barnard, who produced the earliest works as a fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs (1983–84) and later as a Fulbright fellow (1999), employed salt, rice, alcohol, and other desiccants to recreate the textures of decomposition visible in the city’s architecture (p. 145).
The images are based on photographs taken at sunrise and sunset, and Barnard states his aim was to “highlight the beauty of the mundane, the overlooked, the pedestrian” (p. 145). The works were first exhibited at the Alliance Française in Penang in 1999 and subsequently in the United States in 2003, with new images added at each showing.