Looking Out was an off-site exhibition hosted at the Australian High Commission of Malaysia on the occasion of Noor Mahnun Mohamed (Anum)’s return from a residency at The Gunnery Studios, Sydney, in 2005. The exhibition presents paintings made across several locations, including the artist’s new apartment in Kuala Lumpur, her residency studio in Sydney, her residency studio in Rimbun Dahan, and flashes of scenes outside her car window while driving across Malaysian highways from Kuala Lumpur to Kelantan, her hometown.

The exhibition presents the world as seen through the eyes of a singular painter, radiant and alive in kaleidoscopic colours. The works record Anum’s perspective through the shifting landscapes of the artist’s journey, moving between new locales and embracing novel experiences which she translates through her colours and paint. Her reflections culminate with a painting of the Photoheliograph and 8” South Equatorial observatories in the Royal Botanic Gardens of Melbourne, a small domed, linked building built in 1863 to capture the transit of Venus in 1874 and 1882. Like the observatories, Anum’s paintings in the present body of work are monuments built to fleeting moments within the cosmology of the artist’s life.