작품 상세

Nature has its own ways of self-destructing, healing and renewal that any human intervention in re-engineering the disparate equations is counter productive. Vast tracts of land, especially verdant acres, have been cleared, for human habitation, a veritable human jungle filled with the daily detritus of sewage and refuse. Areas demarcated as green sanctuaries should be preserved and not degazetted for development for the sheer lucre of a few. Here in Ahmad Shukri Mohamed’s Golden Gate #27, the misty-hued forest thick with vegetation of varying greens, and with a sliver of light filtering through somewhat near the middle, is like a paradise portal hiding and protecting the floral and fauna within. Stencilled images of ‘chloroformed’ butterflies, some with torn and tattered wings all over it suggests a fragile ecosystem. This work on wildlife conservation and the environment was shown at the Golden Gate exhibition held at Pace Gallery (now Nadine Fine Art) in Petaling Jaya.Ahmad Shukri was a founding member of the Matahati art collective, which achieved cult status with the Matahati Ke Mata Dunia exhibition in Los Angeles, the United States, in 2009. Ahmad Shukri graduated from the Mara Institute of Technology in 1991. He first tasted success when he won the 1st Prize in the one-off Malaysian Art Open at Galeri Petronas in 1994, with his work of chloroformed butterflies. In 1997, he won the Major Award in the Young Contemporary Artists (Bakat Muda Sezaman) competition and the Juror’s Choice Award in the Philip Morris Asean Art Awards finals in the Philippines. He was also in the top 5 Malaysian-level winners in the 1999 Asean Art Awards. He was chosen for the Asean Art Show at the Fukuoka Art Museum in 1994. Shukri took part in the Sharjah Biennale (2003), residencies like Rimbun Dahan (2003), the Echt in Amsterdam, the Netherland (2013), and workshops in Bangladesh and Denmark (2002). His solos include 92939495969798 and Ahmad Shukri (Art Salon, KL, 1998 and 2001), Boy And Girl (Taksu, KL, 2002), Virus (Art Seasons Singapore, 2003), Fitting Room (XOAS, KL, 2005), Golden Gate (Pace Gallery, 2012), Kaki Jual (Nadine Fine Art, 2016), and Made In Malaysia (The Edge Galerie, 2017). The exhibition, Warning: Tapir Crossing, marked the opening of the Patisatu gallery and studio in 2009.