Mah Meri Art Gallery

Mah Meri Art Gallery is a museum-like gallery showcases a private collection of wood carvings carved by Mah Meri indigenous people who lives in Carey Island, Selangor, Malaysia. We have hundreds of masks and statues on display.

All of these masks and statues are made out of kind of a red, rare mangrove hardwood from the mahogany family, namely the “Nyireh Batu” (Xylocarpus moluccensis). Nyireh Batu is superior to others because of its smooth texture and dark colour. However due to land excavation and the spread of palm oil plantations in Carey Island, Nyireh Batu is becoming very scarce. Today, due to the difficulty in finding Nyireh Batu, and the extremely long time and painstaking work to carve a sculpture, the number of active sculptors has dwindled to a mere 10.