“Collage helps visualize an idea, producing different perceptions such as desire, experience and the journey,” says Anisa Abdullah. “Coffee Break is inspired during my residency in Yogyakarta. While I was walking down the streets there, I saw people ‘ngopi’ and ‘ngobrol’, that is just having a good time and having conversations with friends and family at little food stalls down the street,” she added. In all these can be discerned the face-shape of a helmet-clad man. Words, in universe and century fonts and of all sizes, intersperse the painting. The play of the painterly and the collage also blurs the line between what is real and artificial. Born in Warsaw in Poland, Anisa spent her early life following her diplomat father’s posting in Poland, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia but she was posted back to Malaysia to give her a Malaysian education. She graduated with a Diploma in Fine Art from IKIP College, Kuantan, Pahang, in 2005-2008, and a BFA from the Universiti Mara Institute of Technology, majoring in Painting, in 2008-2010. She was awarded a NAFA artist’s residency in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, in 2012. Her first solo Cebis-Cebis was held at Galeri Chandan, and was officiated by the Sultan of Selangor. In the November 2017 Henry Butcher Art Auction, her oil pastel on canvas of size 85cm x 206cm was sold for RM 11,200.