Datsun Tran - Sharifah Sorayya - Works on paper | Sculpture | Mixed media painting - Friday 5 September - Saturday 27 September 2025

Master of Transformation

Growing up in a somewhat traditional Chinese household, I was told lots of stories filled with supernatural characters. There were tales of hungry ghosts, fox spirits and arrogant gods. The 16th Century literary classic Journey to the West was one of my favourite stories; it was bursting with an encyclopaedic list of colourful characters. But the one character who I was most captivated by was Sun Wukong, the Monkey King.

Maybe this had something to do with me being born in the year of the Monkey? Or maybe the irrepressible nature of Monkey was just too fun to hear about as a kid? The appeal of the character has stayed with me throughout my life, but it is in my more recent years that I’ve come to fully appreciate him. Most gods in traditional legends, myths and religious texts come fully formed with personalities and traits that are set in stone, or worse yet, are perfect.

But not Wukong.

One of his titles is ‘Master of 72 Transformations’, which allows him to change into almost anything he desires. But even without his physical powers, it was how he changed as a character that was even more impressive. He was born out of a stone egg, crowned as a king, came to be a student, transformed into a demon, became a pilgrim and finally reached enlightenment and turned into a Buddha.

I see parallels in my own personal and professional life. Who I was as a child, and all I’ve experienced in life turned me into who I am now. The artist I was when I started, is very different to the one I am now. Different choices, different motivations. There doesn’t have to be a final goal, but rather, a new path to take or a new curiosity to explore. The main lesson I’ve learnt from the Monkey King is to constantly grow and transform into what you need to be.

And if possible, maybe make some mischief along the way.

Datsun Tran, artist 2025

Permission to Pass

Permission to Pass reflects the complexity within the duality of Sharifah Sorayya’s life across cultures, careers, and continents. Nearly twenty-five years ago, she left a sheltered yet demanding life in an instant – relocating from Malaysia to Australia, expecting to build a new life for her and her children. However unfamiliar ground led to a serpentine path, filled with unforeseen obstacles. In these moments, survival became her only goal; reflection had to wait, and she learned to move forward, collecting and compressing emotions, storing them deep within.

To reclaim herself, Sharifah Sorayya sought to begin her visual arts career which had been a long-dormant desire, parked for her career, her parents, and her children. Nonrepresentational abstraction was both an invitation and a challenge for her to finally acknowledge her experiences honestly and wholly. She is no longer apologetic as she begins to understand herself and what she has lived through.

Every piece is an extended hand to the viewer, inviting them to engage with the colour, the shapes, the lines, the layers, and the textures – each a fragment of her journey, an echo of hope, loss, resilience, and rediscovery, having given herself permission to pass. The resolution, for her, is ongoing. These paintings are not an end point, but a beginning – a testament to survival, transformation, and the possibility of finding oneself anew.

Permission to Pass is not just her story; it is an open space for reflection, for others to find resonance in the abstract, and perhaps, permission to appreciate their own journey.