{"id":27837,"date":"2026-10-20T14:44:06","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T06:44:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/weiling-gallery.com\/gallery\/?post_type=portfolio&#038;p=27837"},"modified":"2026-10-27T14:56:46","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T06:56:46","slug":"cimb-artober-2026-28-october-1-november-2026-artist-bio","status":"publish","type":"portfolio","link":"https:\/\/weiling-gallery.com\/gallery\/portfolio-item\/cimb-artober-2026-28-october-1-november-2026-artist-bio\/","title":{"rendered":"CIMB ARTOBER 2026 | 28 October &#8211; 1 November 2026 &#8211; Artist Bio"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='artists-title'  class='avia-section av-2ow4vbx-c4091e5ce6334856253df34619286939 main_color avia-section-default avia-no-border-styling  avia-builder-el-0  avia-builder-el-no-sibling  avia-bg-style-scroll  container_wrap fullsize'  ><div class='container av-section-cont-open' ><main  role=\"main\" itemprop=\"mainContentOfPage\"  class='template-page content  av-content-full alpha units'><div class='post-entry post-entry-type-page post-entry-27837'><div class='entry-content-wrapper clearfix'>\n<div class='flex_column av-1xqpji5-f40821a5a245168980fb950eed895db1 av_one_full  avia-builder-el-1  el_before_av_one_full  avia-builder-el-first  first flex_column_div '   ><p>\n<style type=\"text\/css\" data-created_by=\"avia_inline_auto\" id=\"style-css-av-1s9p7fh-87c31a4b1b29dd963164aecbfde5cfa9\">\n#top .hr.hr-invisible.av-1s9p7fh-87c31a4b1b29dd963164aecbfde5cfa9{\nheight:20px;\n}\n<\/style>\n<div  class='hr av-1s9p7fh-87c31a4b1b29dd963164aecbfde5cfa9 hr-invisible  avia-builder-el-2  el_before_av_textblock  avia-builder-el-first  '><span class='hr-inner '><span class=\"hr-inner-style\"><\/span><\/span><\/div><br \/>\n<section class=\"av_textblock_section \"  itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/CreativeWork\" ><div class='avia_textblock  '   itemprop=\"text\" ><h3 class=\"p1\" style=\"font-family: 'eb garamond'; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 2px; text-transform: uppercase; text-align: left;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/weiling-gallery.com\/gallery\/portfolio-item\/cimb-artober-2026-28-october-1-november-2026-works\/\">WORKS<\/a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/weiling-gallery.com\/gallery\/portfolio-item\/cimb-artober-2026-28-october-1-november-2026-press-release\/\">PRESS RELEASE<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/weiling-gallery.com\/gallery\/portfolio-item\/cimb-artober-2026-28-october-1-november-2026-insitu\/\">INSITU<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/weiling-gallery.com\/gallery\/portfolio-item\/cimb-artober-2026-28-october-1-november-2026-artist-bio\/\">ARTIST BIO<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/weiling-gallery.com\/gallery\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/CIMB-ARTOBER-Artwork-statement.pdf\">Artwork statement<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div><div class='flex_column av-1coz5wd-f6d547178b9e116f0e5eacb8c2b4db5f av_one_full  avia-builder-el-4  el_after_av_one_full  avia-builder-el-last  first flex_column_div column-top-margin'   ><section class=\"av_textblock_section \"  itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/CreativeWork\" ><div class='avia_textblock  '  style='font-size:14px; '  itemprop=\"text\" ><p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'open sans thin'; color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-size: 25px; letter-spacing: 1px;\">ABOUT THE ARTISTS<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>ADAM ABAS (B.1976)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Adam Abas (he\/him) is a painter based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He studied Modern and Classical Chinese at SOAS, University of London, and developed his painting practice on his own terms. His work appeared in the 2002 group exhibition The Teaching of Drawing at the National Art Gallery in Kuala Lumpur, and he was longlisted for the Jackson&#8217;s Art Prize in 2025 and again in 2026.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Abas grew up with mixed heritage, and that experience sharpened his sense of how identity politics can produce exclusion rather than belonging. His work answers those divisions directly, aiming for a shared human frequency instead of a fixed category. He has never fully understood how another person&#8217;s feelings could differ from his own. He accepts the idea in principle. In practice, relating to someone else directly, seeing through their eyes, still feels nearly impossible.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">That paradox drives his current practice, a body of large-scale abstract paintings built from precise hand-drawn linear layouts and multiple layers of fluid acrylic. Abas works through what he calls line frequency, colour relativity and spatial tension, choosing structural logic over illustrative narrative. His aim is to locate the biological ground people share, and to transmit visual energy directly through the paint itself. Each canvas functions as its own physical object, a record of labour that no other hand could reproduce, and each one is a deliberate attempt to find a frequency that reaches past language and identity to something people hold in common.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Click to view <a href=\"https:\/\/weiling-gallery.com\/gallery\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Adam-Abas-CV.pdf\">CV<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>IWADH MAHADI (B. 1999)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Iwadh Syafiq Ikhwan bin Mahadi (b. 1999, malaysia) is a contemporary artist whose practice moves between abstraction and figuration through material-based processes. Working across painting, installation, and printmaking, he is known for his use of bamboo frottage, ground textures, and textile assemblage as primary visual language.<br \/>\nHis practice is rooted in the act of imprint\u2014treating surfaces not as passive grounds but as sites of contact, memory, and transformation. Through rubbing, stamping, and repetition, he constructs images that emerge from physical encounter rather than illusion. These marks function as both index and structure, forming systems that echo natural growth, ritual practice, and human networks.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Central to his work is an ongoing inquiry into spirituality as lived condition. Drawing from islamic thought and personal mythology, he explores the tension between discipline and failure, control and surrender, the sacred and the flawed. His works often occupy a threshold where order begins to destabilise, and where imperfection becomes a form of sincerity.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Iwadh frequently works on raw, unprimed surfaces, allowing material vulnerability to remain visible. The body plays a critical role in his process\u2014not as subject alone, but as an agent\u2014where gesture becomes a form of submission and making becomes an act of negotiation rather than control.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">His recent solo exhibition, Trilogy: The Lightseeker (2025) at Wei-Ling Contemporary, marked a significant development in his practice, presenting a body of work that frames art-making as both spiritual inquiry and material encounter.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Click to view <a href=\"https:\/\/weiling-gallery.com\/gallery\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Iwadh-Mahadi-CV.pdf\">CV<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>KHABIR ROSLAN (B. 1995)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Khabir Roslan (b. 1995, Malaysia) is a trans-disciplinary artist whose practice explores the intersections of materiality, spirituality, ecology, and post-human thought. Working across painting, sculpture, installation, and site-responsive practices, he investigates themes of impermanence, interconnectedness, memory, and care through materials such as compost soil, gauze, raw jute and organic matter.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Khabir is a graduate of Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Shah Alam, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Khabir received the Most Promising Artist Award in the Emerging Artist category of the UOB Painting of the Year Malaysia 2020. His practice draws from Islamic philosophy, Nusantara cosmology, and posthumanism, exploring how processes of decay, healing, and regeneration reveal the entangled relationships between humans, non-human life. Through organic and trans-formative materials, his works challenge anthropocentric perspectives and propose a more relational understanding of being.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In 2021, he was selected as a Pelatih Tamu (Guest Trainee) for the Ilmu Program at Museum Gallery Tuanku Fauziah, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), where he developed site-specific works through engagements with traditional Malay architecture, cultural heritage, and tacit knowledge. In 2023, he participated in the WLG Incubator Programmed at Wei-Ling Gallery, further expanding his research into material transformation and ecological systems. He has also participated in artist residencies including the Sunyi Artist-in-Residence Programmed in Langkawi and the Inap Ilmu Residency, where he was mentored by Prof. Hasnul Jamal Saidon and Hasanul Isyraf Idris.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In 2025, Khabir presented his first solo exhibition, Sukma: Megah, Tundok, at Wei- Ling Gallery. The exhibition brought together a body of work centered on decomposition, repair, humility, and transformation through the use of compost soil and hand-stitched forms. Reflecting on the porous relationship between body, earth, and time, the exhibition positioned material change as both an ecological process and a spiritual condition, embodying the artist&#8217;s ongoing investigation into interconnected modes of life.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Click to view <a href=\"https:\/\/weiling-gallery.com\/gallery\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/KHABIR-ROSLAN-CV.pdf\">CV<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>LEE MOK YEE (B.1988)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Lee Mok Yee (b. 1988, Klang, Malaysia) is an artist currently based in Kuala Lumpur. He graduated from the Dasein Academy of Art in Kuala Lumpur and later from the Fine Art programme at the University of London in Middlesex. Lee\u2019s work is process-oriented and often interrogates the material aspect in art-making. He frequently works with readymade or store-bought objects, rearranging these materials as an act of interrogation against uniformity, pushing against the boundaries of function in mass production. In the re\/arranging, he questions the idea of moving within structures as an exploration of change and its futilities.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Lee\u2019s work has been presented in Germany, London, Singapore, and South Korea, along with a sustained presence in Kuala Lumpur. His most recent solo exhibition was The Pyramid Series (2023). Earlier presentations include Rudiments (2022, duo with Mark Tan) and A Rhetorical Garden (2021). He received the Gold Prize at the UOB Painting of the Year award in 2021. Collaborative projects and residency-driven exchanges form a significant part of his practice.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">He recently completed a residency in Arles, France, in 2022, under the auspices of Alliance fran\u00e7aise in Malaysia. In 2021, he was a grantee of the British Council Connections through Culture grant, which allowed him to have an online residency with British artist, Laura Porter. In the same year, he initiated a temporary collective called \u201cLabour and Weight\u201d with local art and cultural workers Okui Lala, Yeo Lyle, and Koe Cheng Gaik. The project was funded by CENDANA\u2019s Art in the City Public Art Commissioning Project and later exhibited at Multimedia University in Cyberjaya in 2023.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">He is currently part of the 2025 Khazanah Associate Artist Residency, a 12-week programme at ACME Studios in London that supports artistic development through cross-cultural exchange and professional growth. The residency strengthens Khazanah\u2019s broader efforts to nurture creative practitioners who contribute to Malaysia\u2019s cultural landscape.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Click to view <a href=\"https:\/\/weiling-gallery.com\/gallery\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Lee-Mok-Yee-CV.pdf\">CV<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>NASRUL ROKES (B.1999)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Born in Besut, Terengganu, Malaysia, and raised in Johor, Nasrul completed his Bachelor\u2019s degree in fine art at UiTM Malaysia. Growing up near a sand and cement factory, Nasrul\u2019s childhood play with the earthen material is embedded in his work.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">With a focus on sand as his medium of choice, Nasrul sees the canvas as an \u201carena\u201d in which artists act; \u201cacting\u201d upon the canvas in a similar way in which he used to play with sand as a child, Nasrul\u2019s abstract work captures a sense of his own personal memory, experience, and pure emotion. In his most recent series of works, Nasrul depicts the symbiotic relationship between the Earth and the community, disrupted by the relentless pursuit of urban expansion. In his paintings, he mimics the aesthetic quality of rainfall, with colorful sand droplets forming unique textures, symbolizing sentiments of growth, joy, and love, questioning how these forces collide with the corrosive elements of human-led degradation of the Earth. Through his tactile artistic language, Nasrul creates an abstract landscape to amplify the silent cries of displaced soil, echoing the environmental and societal consequences of prioritising profit over preservation, conveying the concept of an artificial landscape created by humans.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Throughout his artistic journey, he has actively participated in various art competitions and exhibitions across Malaysia and Singapore. Nasrul\u2019s first solo exhibition, Kontekstura, took place at TAKSU Kuala Lumpur in 2023 and was a successful, largely sold-out show. With a promising career ahead, Nasrul\u2019s artworks were recently acquired by the luxury brand LVMH Group and the Hyatt Hotel Group, and have been collected by both regional and international collectors, as well as public institutions in Shanghai, Singapore, and Malaysia.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Click to view <a href=\"https:\/\/weiling-gallery.com\/gallery\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Nasrul-Rokes-CV.pdf\">CV<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>WONG XIANG YI (B.1987)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Wong Xiang Yi (she\/her) (born in 1987, Kuala Lumpur) received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2010 and a Master of Fine Arts from Taipei University of the Arts in 2016.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Wong majors in ink painting, trained under traditional Lingnan Chinese ink painting, and shaped by China&#8217;s New Ink Painting movement, Japanese Nihonga, and the currents of thought around ink painting she encountered during her master&#8217;s studies in Taiwan. Since returning to Malaysia, she combines her painting with local traditional and mainstream visual art forms, batik and Islamic miniature painting, to arrive at a visual language of her own.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Her work draws on mythology and symbolism from across Malaysia&#8217;s multicultural surroundings: Hindu religious epics, indigenous stories about forest animals, and national historical narratives that have often been misread or simplified. She takes these cultural symbols apart, traces their original meanings, and reassembles them into her compositions, so a single image can hold several histories at once.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Wong has a strong interest in gender studies, and uses a subculture of Japanese manga, BL (Boy&#8217;s Love), as her subject matter. She sees BL culture as a lens onto how a younger generation understands desire and identity, and works to merge this way of seeing with the discipline and formal language of ink painting.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Her work has been exhibited locally and internationally, including at Tainan Art Museum in Taiwan (The Fantasy Wonderland, 2025; Survival of the Exceptional, 2020), the National Art Gallery in Kuala Lumpur (Di Mana(where are) YOUng, 2017), and Grotto Fine Art in Hong Kong. She completed a year-long residency at Rimbun Dahan in 2018, which led to the solo show &#8216;You Belong to Night&#8217;. Her paintings were featured in publication 100 Painters of Tomorrow (Thames and Hudson, 2014), and she has exhibited through Maybank&#8217;s NAFAS Emerging Women Artists Exhibition in Kuala Lumpur.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Click to view <a href=\"https:\/\/weiling-gallery.com\/gallery\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Wong-Xiang-Yi-CV.pdf\">CV<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><br \/>\n\n<style type=\"text\/css\" data-created_by=\"avia_inline_auto\" id=\"style-css-av-rojxtp-2294d6236595e7eb2d8a1ecdb0130f56\">\n#top .hr.hr-invisible.av-rojxtp-2294d6236595e7eb2d8a1ecdb0130f56{\nheight:40px;\n}\n<\/style>\n<div  class='hr av-rojxtp-2294d6236595e7eb2d8a1ecdb0130f56 hr-invisible  avia-builder-el-6  el_after_av_textblock  avia-builder-el-last  '><span class='hr-inner '><span class=\"hr-inner-style\"><\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WORKS&nbsp;|&nbsp;PRESS RELEASE | INSITU | ARTIST BIO | Artwork statement ABOUT THE ARTISTS ADAM ABAS (B.1976) Adam Abas (he\/him) is a painter based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He studied Modern and Classical Chinese at SOAS, University of London, and developed his painting practice on his own terms. His work appeared in the 2002 group exhibition [...]","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"portfolio_entries":[],"class_list":["post-27837","portfolio","type-portfolio","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weiling-gallery.com\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio\/27837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weiling-gallery.com\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weiling-gallery.com\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/portfolio"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weiling-gallery.com\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27837"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/weiling-gallery.com\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio\/27837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28113,"href":"https:\/\/weiling-gallery.com\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio\/27837\/revisions\/28113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weiling-gallery.com\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weiling-gallery.com\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27837"},{"taxonomy":"portfolio_entries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weiling-gallery.com\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio_entries?post=27837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}