Through its role in developing Malaysia’s oil and gas resources and add value to the nation’s petroleum assets, PETRONAS encompasses a philosophy of holistic development that contributes to the well being of Malaysia and its citizens through the support of art and culture. Through GALERI PETRONAS and the PETRONAS Art Collection, PETRONAS is privileged to play its part in supporting the visual arts.The PETRONAS Art Collection consists of traditional and contemporary artworks that span the different generations and genres, which encompass the wealth of Malaysia’s rich and diverse artistic heritage. These artworks orchestrate an expanded field that negotiates the subtle relationship between the visible and the invisible through its formalist visual vocabulary. It is importantly a discreet reflection that through art’s permeability of the Malaysian landscape such artistic manipulations, its aesthetic and mediating potential is far from being exhausted.Inscribed within the visual history of the Malaysian Landscape is the notion that art frames and questions the social practice and human experience to communicate meaning and authenticity. Within this history lies its own nostalgia, where the landscape holds a privileged place and art has variously annexed a broad spectrum of media to echo how culture has constantly modulated through time and place.CONVERGENCE: Allegories of the Malaysian Landscape constructs and deconstructs the perception of the temporality of existence while simultaneously differentiating a variety of nostalgia: a restorative nostalgia that idealizes the past and where it has found and melded with contemporary values and a reflective nostalgia that is historically associated with the present as well as history and time’s passage.
