Few know about Raja Azhar’s preoccupation with Realism in his early years in Australia. It was in 1979, in his first year at the Victoria College of the Art in Melbourne (graduating in 1981). This work shows his sleek skills, combining a female nude and a still-life, playing on patterns and design. A somnambulist spirit prevails as the woman is stretched on a mattress with striped and floral bedsheets, against a backdrop of a red floral design. On the left, cutting off her lower torso perhaps to conceal, a still-life of a potted plant with ramrod stems is put on a wooden pedestal, with the lower third dominated by a red-and-white veneer. It is reminiscent of the style and subject of American Pop artist Tom Wesselmann, known for his Great American Nude. Raja Azhar also taught art classes at the Caulfield Arts Centre for eight years, to help finance his education. Raja Azhar Idris is a versatile artist being adept at drawings, oil, acrylic, printmaking, batik, watercolours and sculptural glass. He is also into conservation painting. He had a gallery called Raya in Melbourne, and on his return to Malaysia after 14 years there, set up Art Case Galleries in 1992. His first solo was a batik exhibition in 1976. He excelled early winning several art awards like the St Kilda competition in 1980 and 1981, the Lord Mayor’s Prize in Melbourne in 1981, the Victorian Artists Society’s Artist of the Year Award, the Gippsland Miniature Art Prize (1982), the Rotary Club of St Kilda Prize (1983) and the Greyhound Prize (1989).