Spirit of Freedom

This monumental work is titled Spirit of Freedom, and was completed shortly before Mhd Din passed away in 2007. Mhd Din had long been fascinated with the practice of Islamic calligraphy and its application within art, and in 1992 helped to organise an exhibition in Singapore titled Islamic Contemporary Works of Art. He saw this as a way to generate a conversation about Islamic calligraphy and how it could be incorporated into modern art in Southeast Asia. In 1999, he studied Islamic calligraphy under an Iranian calligraphy master Hussein Shirazi, as he delved further into studying the science of Arabic letters. In his later work, he synthesised his lifelong engagement with silat with his art through an approach he called “Calligraphic Energy”. Instead of using a paintbrush, he applied paint directly with his bare hands and deployed the bodily postures of silat in sweeping and expressive gestural strokes. In this way, he was able to channel his inner energy into his works and to all who encounter them.