Redza Piyadasa created The Malaysian Series between 1980 and 2005 as a lecturer at Universiti Sains Malaysia in Penang. He learned the photo silkscreen technique from photographer Ismail Hashim (1940-2013), who had just returned from the U.S. in 1979 and joined the university's art department. The Malaysian Series features ready-made vintage studio photos of Malaysians as the theme source, but its visual aesthetics is elevated with technical renderings such as screen print, collage, and vibrant Pop Art colours. This artwork, dated 1984, features a Peranakan matriarch ornately dressed in baju koon sah, typically made using silk brocade. For Piyadasa, the images from the past explain the present complex sociocultural realities. His work – whether in the form of artwork, criticism, or writings – is his answer to Malaysia's neo-nationalistic and Islamic currents. Redza Piyadasa was a renowned artist, art critic and art educator. He was honoured with a retrospective exhibition by the National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur 2001. He won the Major Prize in the Malaysian Landscape competition in 1974 and was a joint winner of the Minor Award with Lee Kian Seng in the 1979 Salon Malaysia. Internationally, he received the Prince Claus Award in 1998 for his contributions to the critical examination of Malaysian contemporary art in the seventies and eighties. He received the Australian Cultural Award (1987) and the Japan Foundation Travel Award (1992). He was also a co-founder of the Five Arts Centre in 1983. In 1991, he was artist-in-residence at the Canberra Institute of the Arts. He received a master's in fine art from the University of Hawaii in Honolulu in 1977 after studying at Hornsey (1967) and Brinsford Lodge (1959) in the U.K.