The travels to far and distant places, the uncharted and little known, across in hospital terrain and secluded communities are what informed Rafiee Abdul Ghani’s art. Whether it is about the Interiors or the Great Outdoors, the grand and the colourful are celebrated and in Dusun Raja, with a Matisse-an flamboyance. This work is from Rafiee’s Roomscape Series, which was inspired by an Australian trip. Dusun Raja is a suburb of Kota Baru and to him, is a reminder of a lost legacy. Trained at the De Vrije Academie Voor Bildeende Kunst at the Hague (1980, did not complete), he followed up his educational credentials with a Diploma at the Mara Institute of Technology (1981-85), and a Master’s from the Manchester Metropolitan University (Manchester Polytechnic) in Britain (1986-87). He won the Minor Award in the Young Contemporaries competition in 1984 and 1985, the Minor Award in the 1991 Salon Malaysia, 2nd Prize in the one-off Malaysian Art Open (1994) and a Juror’s Choice Award winner in the 1994 Philip Morris Asean Art Awards – Malaysia. Apart from teaching at ITM in 1986, 1988 and part-time in 1991-93, he also had a stint in Mahe in Seychelles in 1989-90.