Lot 84 | Auction XXII

LOT 84

ABDUL LATIFF MOHIDIN
B. N. Sembilan, 1941

Siri Gelombang “Bentuk Dalaman”, 1991

Signed and dated “Latiff 91” on lower right

Signed, titled and dated on the top stretcher bar

Signed, titled and dated on the reverse

Oil on canvas

157.5 x 175 cm

Provenance
Private Collection, Kuala Lumpur

Illustrated on page 156 of “Pago-Pago to Gelombang: 40 Years of Latiff Mohidin” exhibition book
Published in 1994 by Singapore Art Museum

SOLD
RM 250,000 – RM 500,000

“His Gelombang works are dynamic and full of movement. They possess a kind of energy that is immediate. The paintings are textural and it is exciting to see someone still working in oil, a medium which younger artists have avoided… We see his motifs as being drawn from the whole Southeast Asia. The diversity of that background and the wealth of these motifs mean that Singaporeans, too, can appreciate the work.” – Susie Koay, former Curator for Art at National Museum Singapore

Unlike his style in Mindscape, which was more towards the meditative stance, this series observes a change in perspective. As Latiff had put it, “The way I produce my series is by going against the last,” Latiff explains.

With Abstract Expressionism influences as well as powerful waves of energy painted with the colours of nature, Latiff delves into Mother Nature and pursues an interest in painting out his emotions and thoughts onto canvas in a raw and uninhibited manner. The artist himself backs this up, as he said, “You have to come back to nature. There’s a magnificence and glory in the whole experience and nature is a very strong factor of enabling my work. I think about it in a way where the many memories and experiences of life are reduced to a lump of mud, a single leaf or one drop of water. And that drop of something is where the secrets are kept, to the spectacle of life.”

Latiff was born in 1941, and is as well-known a poet as an artist as well. He was trained in art at Hochschule fur Bildende Kunste in Germany, Atelier La Courriere in France and Pratt Graphic Centre in America. Among the honours and awards he has received are the Salon Malaysia’s 1968 second prize in Graphic Design and the Malaysian Literary Awards for four years in a row, the National Literary Award in 1984 and 1986 and the Southeast Asian Writers Award in 1984 for writing.