State of art: 7 exhibitions to catch in KL this November 2019

iNYALA is Malaysia's first interactive light exhibition that will have you snapping away to fill your social media feed with. There are 12 light installations by industry professionals including Jun Ong, FNL PRJCT, Helio Media as well as students from UCSI University, MMU, The One Academy, Raffles College of Higher Education and Dasein Academy of Art.

AL/linum is a solo exhibition by emerging artist Luke Heng, which brings together two series of works that deal with the perception and manipulation of spaces within a painting. “Having conceived the larger oil paintings that deal with the spatio-temporal, which was a continuous development of the Non-Place series, the small-scale digital prints came as a form of counteraction to what the larger oil paintings are doing,” says Luke Heng.

This group art exhibition features works of artists from Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Iran. These emerging artists are put together at the same time with three pieces from some of the greatest artists of the 20th century: Joan Miró, Alexander Calder and Antoni Tàpies. This juxtaposition between new and old, and East and West was what inspired the exhibition's name, provoking a space of contemplation.

Indonesian artist Arahmaiani's new solo exhibition in Malaysia unveils a new set of works from her ongoing Jawi script series that has been going on since 1993/94 with Arabian, Malay, and Hindu influences. Her latest pieces feature the most recent reiteration of the Jawi script series in canvas. What stands out most in her works is the use of bright colours aimed at presenting Islam in a "non-violent" light, especially in light of the world's perception on the religion in recent years.

This ongoing exhibition will finally be coming to a close this month, so it's your last chance to catch it in Ilham Gallery. Fracture/Fiction features 93 contemporary works of art by 45 artists from the gallery's growing permanent collection. These artists hail from Southeast Asia and South Asia. More than just an art collection, the exhibition also surveys the innovative ways artists have responded to the pressing social conditions of our time through a broad spectrum of practices and approaches.

It first debuted in Singapore, but Taksu Galleries is bringing The Future Is Female to KL too. This is a group exhibition that highlights artworks which will inspire, redefining strength against gender stereotypes in the art world. Naturally, all the works are by female artists, both local and international.

Do you also believe that there are no such things as chance encounters? Exploring this theme is artist Ng Foo Cheong's exhibition at ZHAN titled "Yuan Qi". His pieces incorporate popular Chinese cultural references such as the Buddha, butterflies (symbols of eternal life), lotus flowers, and more. What Ng wants to achieve from his artwork is to send a gentle reminder to its viewer that many of our life events are connected by serendipitous forces beyond our imagination.