JOHN Lennon's famous song Imagine has to be one of Latiff Mohidin's inspirations. For the renowned Malaysian artist, most of his works are based on his imagination.

Many artists draw according to a targeted landscape or model but for me, it's my imagination which inspires my art, he wrote in a souvenir published in connection with an exhibition of his works at the Petronas Gallery in Kuala Lumpur. The exhibition started last Monday.

Latiff, also well known as an artist, poet and thinker in Southeast Asia, said he likes to draw through the memory of the places he had visited by combining his emotional and poetic ideas and reflecting them in his pieces.

Latiff, born in 1941, was trained in Germany at Hochschule Fur Bildende Kunste, Atelier La Courriere in France and Pratt Graphic Centre in US. His training and experiences had helped him shape the development of art practice and literature through his extraordinary vision.

He had published a number of books with pictorials and translations of Rumi/Khayam, Githanjali and Tao Te Ching and an anthology of his poems.

He has been involved in the literary world for which he was celebrated as much as for his pictorial contributions for more than 30 years.

His 50 art works are now exhibited at the Petronas Gallery. The show is titled Voyage-Kembara Latiff Mohidin and the pieces were produced from 2002-2006.

The exhibition was held in conjunction with the 50th Merdeka Anniversary celebrations.

About daily life

Meanwhile, Latiff's curator TK Sabapathy, a renowned Southeast Asian art historian described Latiff as an illustrator of the heart.

"The significance of Latiff's paintings is that they always reflect the ups and downs of human lives, starting with darkness and ending with brightness. It is a description of our daily life," he said.

Sabapathy pointed out that Latiff's work represent the complexity of humans' lives and emotions and that it requires some real thinking while interpreting them into art pieces.

"It is nothing about simplicity, this is the significance of Latiff's works. They require the audience to understand the importance of artistic awareness in society by linking it to their lives," he added.

Admissions to the exhibition is free. It is open till March at 10am from Tuesday to Sunday.

Meanwhile, Petronas Gallery director Nasariah Syed Ibrahim said the gallery will host a year-long programme of exhibitions and events to celebrate Malaysia's 50th Merdeka.

The line-up for 2007 will cover a myriad of themes and issues in art and contemporary Malaysian society, reflecting the evolution of the society since independence.

Among the exhibitions are 'Photojournalism and The Imaging of Modern Malaysia-seminal moments in the last 50 years of Malaysia', by art writer Eddin Khoo and historian Prof Khoo Kay Kim which begins in April and 'Nusantara Journey' with Petronas Expedition Art and Artifacts by Masnor Ramli which begins on June.