Image size: 27.5 x 24.5 cm
Latiff Mohidin, born in Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia in 1941 completed his primary education in Singapore. While in Singapore, at an early age, Latiff’s precocity in understanding paintings earned him the nickname, ‘Wonder Boy’. From 1960-1964, Latiff studied art at Hochschule fur Bildende Kunste in Berlin, Germany and did brief residencies in Paris and New York. Inspired by his exploration of Southeast Asia in 1964, Latiff has since produced compelling series of artworks – the result of a synthesis between his European experience and the rediscovery of his homeland. He is also a poet who has published several volumes of poetry. ‘Pago-Pago, Bangkok’, applied in ink, can be deemed as a compilation of familiar architectural and natural forms resembling buddhist shrines, leaves and bamboo shoots, and perhaps a disarrayed assembly of jolting fishing boats – seemingly pointing upwards towards the sky. These structures and motifs are employed regularly in the Pago-Pago series. Although most appear more organic and less thorny, they do still retain its totemic ‘interlocking system’.
