EXHIBITION: 'IN BETWEEN WORLDS'
Venue: G13 Gallery, Petaling Jaya
Date: ends July 25
At G13 Gallery, the In Between Worlds show brings together four emerging artists - Aimman Hafizal, Amirul Aiman, Haziq Syawal and Nik Mohd Shafiz - each offering a distinct perspective on the creative process.
The exhibition explores the spaces between memory and imagination, personal experience and shared reality, struggle and contemplation.
At the show, Aimman's Guardian Of The GalaxSea draws on childhood memories, marine life and cosmic imagery, with shaped canvases and hand-painted laser-cut forms transforming painting into a storytelling medium.
Amirul uses the figure of a boxer in motion to explore discipline, endurance and the uncertainties of artistic practice. Through expressive mark-making, layered lines and the textured application of oil sticks, his works portray creativity as a continual negotiation with doubt and instinct.
Inspired by birds, flowers, landscapes and organic forms, Haziq creates symbolic, layered compositions in acrylic on jute. Using masking techniques and fluid patterns, he evokes the rhythms of the natural world.
Nik Mohd turns his attention to urban life, layering figures, architecture, monuments and cityscapes to reflect the spaces people inhabit. His paintings capture the connections that emerge as strangers move through the same streets, each carrying their own stories and aspirations.
More info here.
EXHIBITION: IGGY RODRIQUEZ'S 'UNDER A BORROWED SUN'
Venue: The Back Room, Zhongshan building, KL
Date: July 18 to Aug 16
Under A Borrowed Sun, opening tomorrow at the Back Room gallery, marks Iggy Rodriguez's return to Malaysia after a decade. Among the Philippines' most distinctive draughtsmen, Rodriguez works in pen and ink over months, building each drawing stroke by stroke. "Line by line," he says. "Somehow it's like a prayer."
In these new works, bodies fold into geometric forms and emerge from banks of roses, cut-out figures are layered to cast shadows across their own anatomy.
The questions that have long shaped Rodriguez's practice remain: Who holds power? What do we do with what we inherit? And under whose sun do we live?
Throughout his career, Rodriguez has consistently responded to the traditions of Social Realism and politically engaged practice in Philippine art.
The exhibition's opening reception at Back Room this Saturday (July 18) takes place from 3pm to 7pm.
As part of the exhibition's public programme, Rodriguez will give a public talk at Somewhere, Level 7, Else Kuala Lumpur, on Sunday (July 19) at 11am.
More info here.
EXHIBITION: 'ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG AND ASIA'
Venue: Ilham Gallery, KL
Date: ends Nov 1
A major exhibition at Ilham Gallery, presented in collaboration with Hong Kong's M+, explores the Asian travels of Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008), one of the most influential artists of the 20th century.
Featuring more than 40 works created during and in response to his journeys across Asia between 1964 and 1990, the exhibition highlights a significant yet less-examined aspect of Rauschenberg's practice.
Throughout his travels, the legendary American artist drew inspiration from the people, places and materials he encountered, incorporating them into his multidisciplinary work.
The exhibition also holds particular significance for Malaysian audiences through its focus on the Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange (ROCI), the artist's international initiative promoting cultural exchange through art. Kuala Lumpur was among the cities included in the project, alongside Beijing, Lhasa and Tokyo, and hosted a ROCI exhibition in May 1990 during Rauschenberg's visit to Malaysia.
More than three decades later, the exhibition offers a rare opportunity to revisit a notable chapter in Malaysia's contemporary art history while tracing the profound influence Asia had on Rauschenberg's artistic development.
A public talk, Merantau Of Meaning: Translation, Transfer And The ROCI Malaysia Catalogue, will be held this Saturday (July 18) at 3pm at the gallery. Taking the 1990 ROCI Malaysia catalogue - published solely in Bahasa Malaysia - as its starting point, the session explores translation as cultural transfer: what travels when meaning moves between languages, and what is lost or gained in the process.
The talk (free admission) will be led by literary translator and Pusaka creative director Pauline Fan.
More info here.
4th INTERNATIONAL INVENTX CREATIVE EXHIBITION 2026
Venue: Multimedia University (MMU), Cyberjaya
Date: ends Aug 2
The growing influence of artificial intelligence (AI) is explored by artists, researchers and creative practitioners from 24 countries in this Multimedia University (MMU) exhibition.
Held under the theme "TAP-AI: Extension or Extinction? Crossing Boundaries, Opening-Up Possibilities," the show features 114 artworks selected from 153 submissions, spanning visual arts, digital illustration, photography, filmmaking, immersive media, design and AI-assisted creative productions.
The artists examine issues of originality, authorship, ethics and the evolving relationship between human creativity and intelligent technologies, reflecting growing global interest in AI's impact on artistic practice.
MMU said the exhibition is its most internationally diverse edition since its launch in 2023, with participants from Malaysia, United States, Britain, Japan, South Korea, China, France, Germany, Italy, Turkiye, Canada, Poland, Palestine and Vietnam.
Organised by MMU's Faculty of Creative Multimedia, the exhibition is open Monday to Friday, 9.30am to 5.30pm. Free admission.
More info here.
PHOTOGRAPHY: 'PROJECT SEAVIEW: THE GREAT SEAWALL OF JAPAN'
Venue: The Godown Arts Centre, Kuala Lumpur
Date: ends July 22
For documentary photography enthusiasts, the Project Seaview: The Great Seawall Of Japan exhibition offers a reflection on one of Japan's most significant post-disaster transformations.
Fifteen years after the Great East Japan Earthquake reshaped the country's northeastern coastline, the exhibition invites audiences to consider themes of resilience and the evolving relationship between humanity and nature through photographs of the landscape in the disaster's aftermath.
Presented by The Japan Foundation, Kuala Lumpur (JFKL) in collaboration with The Godown Arts Centre, the exhibition features the work of Malaysian photographer Chai Ming Yang, who documents the monumental concrete seawalls and breakwaters constructed along Japan's Pacific coast following the 2011 disaster.
Stretching nearly 400km along Japan's Tohoku coastline, the seawalls form one of the world's largest coastal defence systems. Built after the 2011 disaster, they have transformed both the landscape and the relationship between communities and the sea.
Through large-format photographs, Project Seaview explores themes of memory, resilience, and protection.
Opening hours, 11am to 6pm. Free admission event.
More info here.
EXHIBITION: HAKEEMI SAMAD'S 'SARKAS'
Venue: Rissim Contemporary, Bangsar, KL
Date: ends July 26
If you are looking for an exhibition with a pointed edge this month, Hakeemi’s Sarkas - which opens tomorrow - offers a provocative encounter.
Through a cast of distorted figures, dense impasto layers, and aggressive brushstrokes, the 23-year-old Kuantan-born painter transforms the gallery walls into a stage for examining the tensions, contradictions and absurdities of contemporary society.
Hakeemi’s works function as sharp visual critiques, confronting themes of corruption, power structures, political complacency, and the systems that shape public life.
Rather than offering straightforward commentary, his exaggerated forms and unsettling compositions expose the flaws, performances, and hypocrisies embedded within social and political structures.
With a deliberately confrontational approach, Sarkas challenges viewers to look beyond the surface and question the realities presented to them.
The paintings become both satire and resistance — a reflection on how power operates, how narratives are constructed, and how art can serve as a tool for scrutiny and dissent.
More info here.
