A first-born of every expectant parent is one of happy anxiety. For the father-to-be, it’s frivolous questions like, ‘Will it be a boy or a girl (it’s a girl), will I be around to help and witness during delivery, How suitable is the residence and baby-room preparations (worse, if a place or single-room accommodation is rented), Will the child look more like the father or the mother?’ For Sabahan Donald Abraham, he was working at his Yak yak Studio in Art Row of MAPS Publika, Kuala Lumpur, and his thoughts invariably wandered into the expectations about his wife expecting their first-born, and so you get baby-talk words like ‘Daddy’ and ‘My Baby,’ which actually are something not altogether different from his graffiti kind of work which looks caricaturish, unreal and about a distorted reality.
A Labuan-born self-taught artist, Donald Abraham was mentored by the naïve artist cum children’s book illustrator Yusof Gajah. He claims to have been doodling since five, still very much is, although he pegged the start of his painting career at 2007. Before, he was working in the construction industry as a welder and fitter. His works can be found on various sections of walls of the MAPS Publika shopping complex in Kuala Lumpur. He is even represented by the reputable Singapore gallery Chan Hampe Galleries. He was also involved in a music video featuring Singapore’s The Sam Willows and Malaysia’s own Son of a Policeman, called Euphoria.