Zulkifli Yusoff is a skilful story-teller on canvas and in installations, dipping into the country’s history, culture, folklores, art, music and literature, especially of the Malay World, as reflection, time comparison, comment and critique. His sources include legends such as Gunung Ledang and Mahsuri, the Malay Annals, personalities like Munshi Abdullah, Birch and acting-singing icons who blazed the silver screen. The theme revolves around power, lust and intrigues. In this work, wedged on the top right corner, is an image of General Tomoyuki Yamashita, the dreaded ‘Tiger of Malaya’ and the ‘Beast of Bataan’ (the Philippines). Never mind that he was tried and executed (Feb 23, 1946) for military atrocities committed in the Philippines during World War II, and not the then Malaya too. Yet, he is viewed differently, as a hero and patriot, by the Japanese then and now, while the victims and their descendants blame him for the wartime crimes. Martin Luther King Junior once said: “We are not makers of history. We are made by history.” Are events predestined, or can history be whitewashed or changed? Artist-academician Zulkifli Yusoff was selected to take part in the Venice Biennale in 1997 under the banner, Modernities And Memories: Recent Works From The Islamic World, and again in 2019, under the Malaysian Pavilion. He was also selected for the Asia-Pacific Triennial of Art in Brisbane, Australia, in 1993; the Singapore Biennale 2013, and the Seychelles Biennale 1992. His laurels include the Major Award in the Young Contemporary Artists (BMS) competition in 1988 and 1989, and the Grand Minister’s Prize in the 1992 Salon Malaysia III, apart from the 1st and 3rd Prizes in Sculpture. He had taught at his alma mater the Mara Institute of Technology (ITM), and Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris in Tanjung Malim, and was honoured with the National Academy Award (Visual Art) in 2007. After studying at ITM, he obtained his Masters at the Manchester Polytechnic in England (1991). He was in the Malaysian team that won 2nd Prize in the Sand Sculpture competition in Hong Kong in 1998.