Unidentified Artworks

Nor Ashraf Norazman

This is a Malay name; the name "Norazman" is a patronymic, not a family name, and the person should be referred to by the given name, "Nor Ashraf" or "Ashraf".

Nor Ashraf Norazman was born on April 25th, 1989, in Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia. He is a small time genius and is currently studying in the University of Oklahoma. His father is a mechanical engineer, while his mother is a physician and endocrinologist.

His artworks reflect in some interesting ways introverted and singular temperament. His creation was spontaneous and miraculous. He found it without seeking it, without foreseeing it. While playing a keyboard instrument such as the piano, suddenly, complete, sublime, or it sang in his head during a walk, and he was impatient to play it to himself. Ashraf was something of a perfectionist whose works, at their best, look spontaneous, yet which reveal minute craft and attention to the smallest detail. Given these tendencies, Ashraf wisely specialized in miniature forms. Most of his output was comprised of small-scale repetitions of subject. He believed that instrumental music benefited from telling a specific story.

He was talented in the extreme to be sure; however, his youthful works are not masterpieces. Most of the pieces for which Ashraf is famous today were created during Ashraf's maturity. His ideas are not for a living, but communicate weighty ideas to posterity. Ashraf holds a reputation as something of a maverick. No rule or tradition could stop him if he felt his way was better. Why a young man who held studies in contempt would want to attend a school illustrates the irony of Ashraf's lifestyle. On the one hand, he felt satisfied with his own way and reluctant to change in order to please anyone else; on the other hand, he worked hard in his classes, and took engineering seriously. Ashraf was a maverick, who also managed on occasion to please both himself and the people around him.

Ashraf, by all accounts, is the most technically gifted person in many areas of his age. He possesses basic skills in different sorts of sports; rugby; parkour; gymnastics; soccer; badminton; ping pong; tennis; soccer; basketball; hockey; softball; dodge ball; running; volleyball; swimming; cycling; brawling; ice skating; skating. Maintaining good health and decent physique is one of his ethics in life.

Ashraf's most interesting innovation was the constant use of variation. His best pieces demonstrate a beautiful coherence, as most subjects within the piece, no matter how eccentric, relate back to the initial subject through some sort of imaginative variation. Ashraf's sense of sentiment to music extended to some of his art works as well. He designed a series of pieces with outlandish layouts such as the scherzo series. Ashraf's earlier pieces are humble in scope, avoiding any possibility of the watcher fantasizing about Leonardonian hero genius creating them, and generally ponting the way to a radical simplicity.

While in the United States, Ashraf showed considerable talent and learned to play the piano by himself. He was a great admirer of classical music. He attended relatively many classical concerts performed in the University of Oklahoma (OU) within a semester. His appreciation to classical music made him took interest in keyboard instrument such as the piano. However, he did not receive any piano lesson before coming to OU. It was said that he does not even know how to read the musical notes. Ashraf played the piano as if he received the adequate training every time he pressed the keys. All of the songs and movements are composed spontaneously whenever he was sitting at the piano. His self-style genius in executing his pieces is appreciated by a few. There was a time he joked about there's a Mozart in him; while Mozart composed his works in his mind before writing them, Ashraf composed the songs on a toy guitar and execute them on the piano. Most of Ashraf's pieces are a combination of different musical elements. In an unnamed song, there are several movements which contain indeterminacy, non-imitative polyphony, inversion, retrograde, unpredictable dissonance, weak atonality and trillo. He displayed great virtuosity as an inexperience performer. Most of them are whole tone scale.

For most of his time, Ashraf avoided public scrutiny. He did not seek out worldwide fame, preferring to view his art as a sign of self-reliance. He and his family, along with selected neighbors and friends, constituted audience enough for him. He did self-published several works, including his handsome musical distortion, an abstract piece with small scale variation of lines depicting the distortions.

Ashraf's virtuosity lay in his artworks and his superb ability as an artist always to pick interesting subjects. Ashraf does not quote any specific work from the past, but his pieces are full of styles common in earlier art. He always believed in by synthesizing visual art, music, and mathematics could be the best form of art there ever is. It is quoted from a good friend of his, Patrick Borelli, that Ashraf said the phrase during sleep, "There's a flaw in Mozart's equation". This quote is referring to whether Mozart did use the golden ratio when he divided sections of his piano sonatas. However, the measures of expositions to developments to recapitulations covers a considerable spread, from 0.534 to 0.833, even though the peaks are near to the golden ratio 0.618. The subject is still remains as a debate.

Ashraf went to the United States in order to study petroleum engineering, funded by Petroliam Nasional Berhad (PETRONAS). In his freshman year, his outstanding mathematical skills were recognized from a mathematician, Michael Jablonski. He was offered to do undergraduate research at OU. Moreover, he also attended the Graduate Symposium. It is a conference where people in high academic excellence are honored to join in research opportunities. One offer is on multidisciplinary research while the other one is a mathematical research. However, he turned both of the offers down. He considered that research were not as fun a playing and hanging out with close friends. Due to his excellent performance in academics and managed to get into one of the top 20% of class standing, Ashraf decided to accept the invitation of joining the National Collegiate Scholars Society (NSCS). NSCS is a 501(c)3 honors organization that recognizes the academic achievement of first- and second-year undergraduate students.

In the United States, Ashraf gravitated toward a highly literate and accomplished circle of friends while expanding his network. Ashraf could be a reluctant public figure. Since his youth, he was used to interacting with various kinds of people. He was moderately popular within every close community he was currently in. His ability to recognize people by names and faces are indeed a powerful tool to him.

Ashraf's fame rests on his living-in-the-moment style. He is known to be using his spare time having fun all the time. His bizarre personality makes some to think that it is irony for a man like him to have it all. A few might argue that he was an overachiever for almost everything that he did was above average, including the things which are new to him. A genius mind like him would be an indispensable asset to any organization he works for. There are promising potentials ahead of him waiting to be untapped. It is all up to him to make the choices. There is one thing for sure; he will definitely make the best of them.

A proud Malaysian, he is.

I believe the painting is titled "Grandmother's Kitchen." (I am looking for a bio on the painter (C Carson) but have struck out to date.)

I also have a painting signed "C. Carson" and am trying to find out about the artist. Of course, it may not be the same person. Mine is of a shelf with flowers in a tea kettle, a plate, a duck decoy, books and a candle. It was valued by the Beech Street Art Company in 1995. Do you have any info?

I've looked for a bio for C. Carson as well, but haven't been able to find much of anything on the Internet other than that C. Carson is his pen name and he is a Korean immigrant to the U.S.. However, from talking with some artists I know, I've been told that he's been exploring other painting styles over the last decade and that he may emerge again in the next few years. I don't know much about his works, so I can't answer your question, but I have been impressed with the few paintings of his that I have seen.