They watch with bated breath as the artist’s marker moves with strong, dexterous strokes, creating an unusual image on his easel-mounted canvas.
It’s not a landscape or still life being created here. Ellffy McKenzie, who calls himself “The Mystic Artist”, claims to be drawing a spirit. He believes there is an unseen world around us, filled with beings beyond belief, and uses his art to enlighten people about them.
“I use my platforms, Facebook and TikTok, to educate people about the unseen world. Things people cannot see naturally. Things like lost technology, and astral beings such as angels and djinns,” McKenzie told FMT Lifestyle.
Singapore-born McKenzie learnt to draw at age three, thanks to his father, a painter in the fine arts.
According to him, when he was about 14, God “opened his eyes”, removing the barrier before them. Since then, McKenzie claims to perceive things others cannot, and can discover hidden things about a person just by looking about them.
The jovial artist recently showcased his unique skill at a demonstration held during a cartoon art festival at Rumah Tangsi.
There, McKenzie sketched one of the spirits supposedly in the room: according to him, it was called al-Uammar, often known as “bunian” in Southeast Asia.
According to him, these beings have coexisted with humanity for a very long time but live on another plane of existence, where time and space operate differently.
Djinns, he elaborated, have whole societies of their own and, like humans, some of them are good, and others evil.
Most forms of magic, he added, originate from the use of new or unexplained technology that humanity does not understand yet.
“For every one person, there are about 40 djinn. That’s the population. And for each djinn, there are about 99 angels. So, these beings are truly numerous,” he said.
McKenzie claims to have spent most of his life interacting with these beings. Occasionally, he has even been hired to conduct exorcisms if their encounters with humans turned ugly.
According to him, many of these beings are too complex for most humans to comprehend. He, therefore, draws them in simpler styles, with Japanese manga-esque techniques, to make it easier for people to take them in.
McKenzie said it doesn’t matter to him that there are those who doubt his claims: it is their choice to believe him or not.
He added that not everything that seems unexplainable is the work of the supernatural.
“The thing with people is that they are easily scared. And because of a phenomenon called ‘pareidolia’, they end up imagining things that are not there,” he commented, referring to the phenomenon where people see “faces” or other images in random or ambiguous visual patterns.
He stressed, however, that it is important for people not to meddle with things they do not understand, as that may lead to conflicts with the unseen – for example, people who venture into the woods to deliberately cause trouble there.
Ultimately, McKenzie hopes that through his art, people will learn the importance of connecting with one another, as well as developing a deep appreciation for things they do not understand.
“Maybe one day, you may go home and see an entity. Accept that as fortune (rezeki) from God to you! Because He revealed the wonders of His creation to you, even for just a while,” he concluded.