CORE contemporary art

Core Design Gallery and co-presented with Maya Gallery are pleased to reopen after months of circuit breaker with an exhibition, “PANAS” (or “Hot” in malay), by Haafiz Shahimi. This show marks the artist’s debut at Maya Gallery. Following the successful run of his solo, “AWAS”, early this year at Core Design Gallery, Malaysia, “PANAS” continues to highlight his specialty—creating art with fire. Harnessing flames to burn imprints onto canvas, Haafiz explores the techniques of pyrography printing and direct fire burning in his contemporary art practice. by adopting traditional malay and southeast asian cultural elements, Haafiz Shahimi aims to encourage east-west dialogue and find balance between tradition and unorthodox printmaking techniques.

Haafiz Shahimi was born in Kedah, Malaysia on 1986 and graduated a Bachelor’s degree in fine arts from University Teknologi Mara (UiTM) in 2011. His artistic performances have expanded to several discipline practices such as painting, installation and performing arts. Starting 2014, he had further explored the techniques of creating artworks with fire through pyrography printing and direct fire burning which gradually expands his forms of artworks, thus widening his scales of prospect. Haafiz uses the oriental philosophies and contemporary social issues as a based concept for his artworks which he relates with the society then he explained and responded towards the local cultural history.

The definition of contemporary art in terms of time is generally from 1980 to the present, and artists are exposed to today’s cultural environment and face the facts of today, so contemporary art reflects the characteristics of the times. Unlike previous art, contemporary art can express art in a variety of media, which has a broader meaning and more diverse means. Therefore, the cross-border of contemporary artists is constantly happening. Haafiz Shahimi’s works make extensive use of malaysian elements, and his personal art has always grasped a kind of “locality” that continues to work worldwide. Self-fish, Hamba Kayangan, Intensity of Heaven and Earth etc. are all created by Haafiz using local elements and national culture in his own growth environment and borrowing art to make the east and west dialogue.