It’s not surprising that Raja Azhar Idris had chosen dance as one of his manifold themes in his artistic oeuvre, as he had also been a dancer in his own dance troupe called Australian Contemporary Dance Company when he was in Melbourne. Raja Azhar was interested in capturing movement and momentum of this obviously modern dance, with the skirts billowing as the pace hit uptempo. He had also painted the more traditional Mak Yong. This work was done in 1993, a year after Raja Azhar decided to return for good to Malaysia after spending a decade in Melbourne, Australia, where he studied and eventually ran an art gallery, Raya. On his return, he set up the Art Case Galleries. Raja Azhar Idris graduated with a degree in Fine Art from the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, in 1981, the year when he won the Melbourne Lord Mayor’s Prize, and was voted the Artist of the Year by the Victorian Artists Society. He won the Miniature Gippland Prize in 1982 and the Rotary Club of St Kilda Art Prize in 1983, and the VCA’s Elizabeth Murdoch travelling fellowship in 1985. In 1989, he was awarded the Greyhound Art Prize. Apart from acrylic, oil and watercolours, Raja Azhar had also done batik, etchings and sculptures in metal and glass. His first batik solo was in Kuala Lumpur and Paris in 1976. He performed painting live on stage in the Malam Karyawan at the Shah Alam stadium. Since taking up glass sculpture in 1999, he has had several major commissions including the Tree Of Life, measuring 38 feet by 36 feet by 60 feet (365 pieces) at the Institut Jantung Negara, Kuala Lumpur.