Each year, we identify the Asian artists on the rise, shining a light on the exciting and provocative works enriching the region’s artistic and cultural landscape. Malaysian artist Shafiq Nordin shares his story.
Surrealism meets Pop in the satirical art of Shafiq Nordin. Every inch of his canvases is coloured with a riot of imagery, pattern and hue that sparks discussions on current affairs transpiring in real time. Take All The Things We Love, a parody of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, it was painted as a rumination on the way art has become a tool in the search to “go viral”. Nordin refers to climate-change activists who were attacking famous Western artworks in museums across Europe and links it back to the Malaysian contemporary art scene by asking viewers to move past the brand names associated with art and search for deeper meanings and truths that resonate.
It might be argued that Nordin’s home state of Negeri Sembilan, where he was born in 1989, has influenced his art. Negeri Sembilan has a strong history of crafts and architecture, which are alluded to in Nordin’s production of three-dimensional wall sculptures of hybrid creatures that speak of the complex overlaps found in our ever-globalising world. His distinct art is finding favour within Malaysia and around the world. Soon after graduating with a BA in fine art, he was awarded the MEA Award (2013), Young Gun Award (2016), and Bakat Muda Sezaman Award from the National Gallery Kuala Lumpur (2019). His works have been exhibited in several group shows in Malaysia as well as in France, Turkey, Singapore, Taiwan, Indonesia, and South Korea. In 2023, Shafiq held two successful international solo shows: It’s a Beautiful Life at the Secret Fresh Gallery in the Manila, the Philippines and Familiar Faces at Lei Xiang Gallery in Taipei, Taiwan.
