Shafiq Nordin

Malaysian artist Shafiq Nordin was born in 1989, in Negeri
Sembilan, Malaysia. Shafiq loves and is good at creating since he
was a child. He was just 10 when he started drawing comics and
cartoon characters on pages ripped out from of his school exercise
books. His parents, in recognizing his interest and to prevent him
from tearing more schoolbooks, got him his very own art supplies and
began his art life. Shafiq majored in painting and got his degree in
Fine Art, from UiTM Shah Alam, in 2012. 

Shafiq used the works of Yayoi Kusama, Takashi Murakami, and Yuko
Shumizu as inspirations. Throughout the years of creating, the
artist not only continuously transforms his creative style and
connotation, but combines events happened around him and films which
watched make Shafiq ’s art transform into the unique
characteristics. Shafiq’s character likes an assortment of chimeras.
Instead of producing paintings about the victims and casualties of
geopolitical games, the artist go the other way in the style of
surreal and fantasy world, and takes no prisoners when illustrating
certain nefarious forces and their evil capitalist agendas as the
skinless muscle-bounded beasts they are. 

The creation from Shafiq are painted to slightly resemble woodcut
prints, the common medium used in proletarian political art. By
doing so, it somehow provides Shafiq’s well-composed satire some
sort of link to the political art of the past, especially the prints
of German Expressionists. Using non-mainstream concepts and skills
to create political and social issues, the relationship between the
offender and the victim, Shafiq goes straight for the jugular,
launching his scathing attacks on the issue he focus. Drawing
specific attention to the monstrous nature of humanity’s imperialist
ambitions and insatiable greed, the artist still believes that human
relationship is the answer to solve the huge obstacles. With his own
strong imagery, unique style, coarse outlines, interesting
interpretation and well-composed satire, Shafiq Nordin is revered
for conveying world issue and social phenomena.

Shafiq won Malaysia Emerging Artist Award in 2014, and make Shafik
more well-known and popular in the contemporary art. This style
awarded the artist a Young Gun Award in 2018 and made him a finalist
of Bakat Muda Sezaman (BMS) in 2019. Shafiq’s installation for Bakat
Muda Sezaman became part of a permanent collection in the National
Art Gallery (Balai Seni Negara) Malaysia. The artist have explored
beyond his community, by joining several international exhibitions
and art fairs throughout Germany, Korea, Philippines, Singapore,
Indonesia, Australia, Istanbul and France. In 2021, Malaysian artist
Shafiq Nordin will have the latest and the first international solo
exhibition in GIN HUANG Gallery Taichung gallery.