Artist angry and heartbroken over destroyed work

Muhammad Suhaimi (left)

KLANG: Mural artist Muhammad Suhaimi Ali is heartbroken that the portraits he and his two friends had painted on the wall of a row of shophouses in Shah Alam were defaced.“We had put in so much effort to create the murals and someone actually had the audacity to destroy them.

“It also makes me very angry, ” said Suhaimi, 27, who had conceptualised the project and implemented it with the help of his friends Muhamad Firdaus Nordin, 26, and Abdul Hadi Ramli, 27.

The trio had painted the portraits of Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah, Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, Senior Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Religious Affairs) Datuk Seri Dr Zulkifli Mohamad Al-Bakri and PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang.

The murals adorned the walls of a building at Taman Cahaya Alam in Seksyen U12 and received a stream of visitors, including Sultan Abdullah and the Queen, Tunku Azizah Aminah Maimunah Iskandariah as well as Dr Noor Hisham.

Suhaimi said Muhyiddin was scheduled to visit the site this week.

“But the murals have already been wiped by the local authorities, ” he said.

The portraits of the King and Dr Noor Hisham were painted by Suhaimi while his friends painted the other personalities.

When asked if he would be repainting the murals, Suhaimi said he would do so in the near future, but he would need to find a vandal-proof location first.