The Symbolism of the COVID-19 Event in The Artwork of Issarezal Ismail

Abstract

Artwork is an expression of an artist inspired by thought and experience that encompasses issues and questions, including events, history, social, disasters, and psychology. This study was conducted to analyze and explain the signs and symbols on 20 works by Issarezal Ismail from two exhibition series entitled Wake Me Up When It’s All Over. The artworks from this exhibition were inspired by the artist’s own experience stranded in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah during the COVID-19 outbreak. The approach of this study is in the type of art study where it sits under a qualitative study that focuses on descriptive and holistic explanation. A conceptual framework was constructed based on the relevant concepts used by the researchers as a guide to analyzing the symbolism of the COVID-19 pandemic events in the work of Issarezal Ismail. The results of the analysis show that this series of works entitled Wake Me Up When It's All Over tries to reveal personal symbols from the artist's personal experience while dealing with movement control (MCO) situations. Due to the implementation of MCO, the artist's plan to move to Perak was disrupted, and he had to rent a cramped room while waiting for the MCO period to end. The results from the analysis found that each of his works uses signs and symbols such as humans, everyday objects, and elements of space, size, and material.