They look like three giant teardrops but are symbolic of the jantung pisang (banana flower) and because of the specific allusion to an historical event, the assassination of J.W.W. Birch, the first British Resident of Perak, they conjure the shape of a spear head, the instrument used to kill the first British Resident of Perak when he was having a bath on his boat on Nov 2, 1875. By themselves, though, they would look like some odd bulky lanterns. Made of fibreglass and resin, these pendulous objects are embellished and studded for an ‘arty’ polish, but they would gain more currency and significance given a proper ambience or setting. At 58, Zulkifli Yusoff looks among the front-runners for the mantle of Malaysian art. He showed at the 1998 Venice Biennale’s Modernities and Memories: Recent Works from the Islamic World and the 2019 edition. He won the Grand Minister’s Prize in the Salon Malaysia III in 1992, and the Major Award in the Young Contemporary Artists in 1988 and 1989 (jointly). He was accorded the National Academic Award (Visual Art) in 2007. He was selected for the Asia-Pacific Triennial in Brisbane, Australia, in 1993, and the Singapore Biennale in 2013. Trained at the Mara Institute of Technology, Zulkifli graduated with a Masters at the Manchester Polytechnic in 1991.