057

EXHIBITED
Yang Terutama, National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, 14 March - 24 April 2011.

The Mindscape series represents the most contemplative and delicate works from the artist’s outstanding oeuvre of abstract paintings. Having emerged in 1973, an important turning point in the artist’s life marked by marriage and a steady career, it signifies a departure from the rawness and spontaneity of the Pago-Pago. While the Pago-Pago was executed in swift fervent strokes, allowing the viewer to peer into the painting process, the Mindscape appears aloof and immaculate, leaving out the hand of the artist. Turning inwards to his inner preoccupations, the dome-like structure housing a fiery explosion of free flowing colours and forms suggests a window into the artist’s introspective process. Parallels can be drawn to the splatters of volatile and organic forms set within the boundaries of the geometric structures of the Langkawi, while seeds for the expressionistic Gelombang series to come were being cultivated.

Perfectly exemplifying this meditative series of work is this 1983 Mindscape. Dominated in cool blue and green with fluid shapes of warm red and yellow, this oil on canvas hails from the esteemed collection of Ambassador Dato’ N. Parameswaran (former Malaysian Ambassador to Singapore). In a phone interview, Dato’ Param revealed that the painting was acquired from the estate of a highly regarded private collector in the early 1990s. The work travelled with this previous owner to various countries where he was stationed, and finally found its way back to homeland with Dato’ Param’s acquisition. The painting was first exhibited at the Maybank Art Gallery in Kuala Lumpur in 1988, and was recently featured at the National Visual Arts Gallery in the Yang Terutama exhibition early 2010, which showcased collections of 14 former Malaysian Ambassadors.

Abdul Latiff Mohidin is a poet, painter, printmaker and sculptor. He received his education at Hochschule fur Bildende Kunste in Germany, studied printmaking at Atelier La Courriere in France and Pratt Graphic Centre in New York, USA. He received honours and awards such as the Malaysia’s National Literary Prize and the Southeast Asian’s Writer’s Award in 1984. Hailed as a ‘boy wonder’ by the local press when he held his first solo at the Kota Raja Malay School in 1951 at the age of ten, he has come a long way to earn himself the distinction of being one of the leading modern Southeast Asian artists, and today he is regarded as a national treasure. From the monumental and arresting Pago-Pago to the dynamic and perpetual Gelombang, Latiff never fail to surprise us with fresh ideas in every new work.