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EXHIBITED
Selangor, Rimbun Dahan, ‘Art for Nature: Shifting Boundaries’ Charity Exhibition for Worldwide Fund Malaysia, May 2008.

The painting was specially created for Art For Nature, an annual charity art exhibition to support artists and Worldwide Fund Malaysia’s nature conservation efforts, with the theme Shifting Boundaries. In the project, artists were asked to create artworks in response to the impact of industrialisation on the eco-system, and Hamir seized on the Exxon Valdez oil spill at Prince William Sound in Alaska in 1989 which decimated the marine life there and in its adjacent areas. The painting shows a Humboldt penguin, like a new carcass dripping with the spillover oil, gasping for air and life while making a last stand against the massive environmental pollution. Cases like these are still ongoing, with an incident as recent as May 2010, where several thousand barrels of oil were spilled from the British Petroleum-owned Trans Alaskan pipeline system, further polluting the eco-system in the surrounding areas.