ARTIST PORTFOLIO ZEEN CHIN

The Malaysian illustrator and concept artist mixes familiar styles and themes to make art that’s unusual, unsettling and uniquely his own, learns Gary Evans

- Gary Evans

Zeen Chin was brought up by his grandparents in a small town in the south of Peninsular Malaysia. Behind their house in Kulai was a lake where Zeen and his friends went fishing and built dens. Opposite the lake was a temple where they played. During festivals, the temple staff would set up a projector and a makeshift outdoor screen, and Zeen would sit down on a stool brought from home to watch old Hong Kong horror films.

In recent years the Malaysian has illustrated card art for Applibot’s Legend of the Cryptids and Galaxy Saga, and contributed illustrations and concept art to the board game Kingdom Death. He’s got a big following online. He’s pretty famous – at least, in the world of fantasy art – but he’s not in it for that. Zeen just wants to draw.

His little story about the temple and the horror films contains all the themes you’ll find in Zeen’s art: nostalgia for childhood; Southeast Asian folklore and religion; the contrast of humour and horror, light and dark, good and evil. His work is weird, often unsettling, but never boring. Zeen’s pictures reward careful study. A cursory glance is never enough. There’s always something more to see, something unusual, unsettling or unexpected hiding beneath the surface of the everyday – much like seeing a horror film in a temple.

TERADA AND NINJA TURTLES

Growing up, Zeen’s parents worked and lived far away in the city, which wasn’t uncommon back then, but he got into art with the help of his mother. She wasn’t a professional artist, but she knew enough to teach him the basics. He always enjoyed getting compliments from family and teachers about his drawings, so art quickly became something more than a pastime.