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. Latiff started to use landscape as a subject and composition in the 1950s. The adoption of primary colours that intermingle with sharp lines depicting the fluidity of movements in ‘Interior Landscape (5)’, reveals Latiff’s interiority – his youthful inner energy. The visibility of the frame that clearly contains the ‘activity’, symbolizes Latiff’s request: inviting the viewers to receive and accept the emphasis of his imaginary mindscape and passion in interpreting the movements of nature.
