Zulkifli Yusoff

Zulkifli Yusoff is a contemporary Malaysia artist who flexes a flat style to draw disparate images together forming distinct narratives, which frequently relate to the emergence of Malaysia, from Malaya, and consequentially reveals conceptualisations of identity and place.

From screen printed images of war (planes and Samurai swords), film images of illustrious film idols – P. Ramlee and Saloma, up to and including a Time magazine cover proclaiming a new nation (Malaysia – April 1963), Zulkifli Yusoff reveals what it has meant, semiotically and symbolically, to be Malaysian, unshackled from the colonial yoke.

Weaving a comprehensive tapestry of imagery, from the 1940s, 50s and 60s, Zulkifli Yusoff achieves a narrative concerning an outsider’s view looking in and an insider’s view looking out. This, with the greatest of fortune for the onlooker, is not done is any dry, dull, academic exposition, but rather in a colourful, joyous, intriguing revelation which, while in one sense looks back to the works of Yusoff’s countryman Rezda Piyadasa, simultaneously looks forward to a fresh, exciting era of contemporary Malaysian art, with just a hint at the Expressionism of a Malaysian James Ensor, or an Asian Emile Nolde.

The artist’s ‘expressionism’, however, moves ever toward abstract, with intriguing, works strangely reminiscent of the Latin American artist Wilfredo Lam and the character ‘Nemesis the Warlock’ (from the comic 2000AD) drawn by British artist Kevin O’Neill.

These abstracted works are full of painterly movement and dynamism with canvases reflecting the Yusoff’s interpretation of narratives concerning Malaya and the creation of Malaysia.

Power Series

Harimau Malaya I

Jelingan V

Itik Pulang Petang IV (Malaya Series)

Itik Pulang Petang iii

Dalang Wayang Baru

Questions about meaning and existence haunt Humeirah, filling her with a sense of dread and unease as she wonders why thoughts that bother her don’t bother others, why she isn’t happy with things that make women around her happy, and why she can’t fit in.

Humeirah spends most of her time thinking, reading, destroying and reconstructing the ideas and beliefs she was raised with. This is the story of a woman who seeks something beyond freedom from a suffocating marriage and a cluster of people who don't understand her.

A story of a swim against the tide." The Hindu, India

"Humeirah…stands out as a particularly courageous story of looking within for answers." Vasudev Murthy, Author of What the Raags Told Me and Sherlock Holmes, The Missing Years: Timbuktu

"Humeirah is the touching story of a philosophical quest." L'Express Dimanche, Mauritius

"There is a depth to...[Humeirah]...that belies mere storytelling." The Sun, Malaysia

https://www.amazon.com/Humeirah-Sabah-Carrim/dp/9671107400