Ahmad Azahari Mohd Noor, better known as Jeri, made Retro-Pop on canvas, assemblages or as objects, Found or otherwise, often very colourful, hung on walls or from ceilings. He was a regular Kilroy, splattering paint all over, even on his second-hand car parked on the porch. Pop Art to him was what popped out of his head, something spontaneous. He would do outrageous things, like fasting for 14 days in his ‘In Search of Ahmad’ ‘non-performance.’ In Hole X, drawn from his solo, The Hole Story, at the Stonor Centre in Kuala Lumpur in 1999, Jeri explored all kinds of holes as something concrete and vacuous. He silkscreened 48 grid images of ‘holes’ matrimonial ring et al, and painted a trellis of irregular geometric phalanx over it. It was tragic that in his hour of greatest triumph, while preparing for his exhibition at the National Art Gallery, he fell gravely ill and into coma for three days before he died on July 19, 2006 – three months short of his 51st birthday. Many believe he caught something when he was in Dacca, representing Malaysia with three other artists in the 12th Bangladesh Biennale that March. Jeri studied at the Mara Institute of Technology in 1973-1974, but being a rebel, he opted out. He worked as a graphic artist at the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka for two years, and continued his work at the New Straits Times group of companies but quit in 1987. His solos include Pop Art (ParkRoyal Hotel, Kuala Lumpur (1996), Goethe-Institut director Gerhard Engelking’s Space 2323, Kuala Lumpur (1997), ‘Pop Goes The Culture at Galeri Maybank (1997), Celebration (Regent Hotel, Kuala Lumpur (1998), Relations at Galeri Petronas (2001, when he was a resident artist there) and Revolution at Balai Berita (2004).