Lot 109
LATIF MAULAN
b. Pahang, 1974
TENGGELAM, 2011
Signed and dated 'Latif Maulan 2011' (lower right)
Oil on canvas
180cm x 180cm
PROVENANCE
Private collection, Kelantan.
ESTIMATE RM 7,000 - 12,000
PRICE REALISED RM 5,000 |
There is an unspoken thrill of keeping one’s head and whole body under water for a spell. Jus the soft sonic and a aquatic numbness that seems to keep one in a different realm, without all the aid and encumbrances of scuba-diving paraphernalia. Here, the woman clad in a light black dress is curled up like a baby in the womb, legs crossed slightly at an angle, in a séance-like meditation, eyes closed. A large marine creature, a giant turtle, glides by from the top left, as if to make sure that she’s OK, while another larger creature, a whale perhaps, looms in the backdrop. Yes, like in life, the immediate living environment is fraught with many dangers, real and imagined. The woman, while ostensibly ‘falling’ does not fit his earlier renditions of the falling figure, which takes on a different trajectory.
Self-taught Latif Maulan’s art career reads like a fairy-tale. Somewhat a drifter having worked as a dishwasher, waiter, advertising designer, shopping-complex display artist, he was given a resident’s artist stint in Kuala Lumpur, and a fulltime artist in 1992. He decided to venture abroad. To the Big Apple where he sold two large works in the Soloat Collector’s Party at Excel Gallery, New York, two weeks in 2000), Australia (2001), a year in East Sussex in Britain as a graphic designer (2002), and six months in Plymouth (2013), where he showed at the Barbican Gallery there. First solo, Parallel Universe, at the Art Case Galleries, Kuala Lumpur, 2006. In 2006, he had already moved into Photo-Realism figuratives from his Nature and still-life themes. A finalist in the 2009 MEAA competition, he won big in the Redbull ehwaubulan showcase in 2016. |