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Mohidin, Abdul Latiff bin Haji (1938--) By Abdullah, Sarena
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Born on 20 August 1941 in Seremban, Negeri Sembilan, Abdul Latiff bin Haji Mohidin, better known as Latiff Mohidin, is a Malaysian painter and poet whose works are emotional, expressive, and gestural. As a child prodigy, Latiff Mohidin was called a “Boy Wonder“ from the age of eleven for his talent in art. He was sent on a German Academic Student Exchange Scholarship to Germany, where he began his studies at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin in 1960. In 1969, he took up printmaking at Atelier La Courrière, Paris, and Pratt Graphic Center, New York. His works are identifiable by his use of brushstrokes, swathes of color, texture, and layers of oil paint with lines that are dynamic and possess an energy of immediacy. His works combine visual elements as well as the verbal and gestural, and, in this way, successfully present different levels of perspective and meaning. Latiff Mohidin expresses his personal anguish on a blank canvas, paying little attention to form, style, or subject matter. It can be argued that his paintings, created in a series, are autobiographical acts of self-creation, operating as both expressions of his personality and artistic journeys into nature.