This work, Sitting With The Genii #18, represents a slew of breakout works in Umibaizurah Mahir@Ismail’s first solo, Hybrid, at Wei-Ling Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur from Oct 19-Nov 11, 2009 (image featured on Page 26 of the Hybrid catalogue). The works using toys as metaphors of everyday objects are arrayed under several series namely Sitting With the Genii, Road Runner, Hands Up! And Delivery. They touch on issues like globalization, consumer culture, spiritual beauty, transformations, politics, cultural values and desires. “I want to alter people’s perception of ceramics. Modern times are bringing big changes to the making of ceramics, as it transforms from a functional form to modern artistic and sculptural forms.” With some five to six firings each object, the technical processes also include layering the colours, glazes and oxides, stains and adding images, layering and subtracting and reapplication of the images.