There is nothing like a simple healthy breakfast to start the day. What is perhaps more important is the ambience, a nice quiet table with a large pot of red flowers to exude a soothing fragrance to go with the aroma of hot coffee. And a fruit to be eaten direct. No messy peeling or cutting. It tells about a test when a person is offered between an apple and a Sunkist orange. If the person chooses the apple, then he is a practical guy who takes things as they are. The orange guy will need to cut the orange before he can partake of what’s inside. It is this kind of mood exuded in the painting: relaxed, carefree and soaking in the atmosphere. Just the tonic to set one about on a hectic day as opposed to hurrying with the breakfast and probably getting indigestion and eventually getting nothing accomplished. Using brush, palette knife and digital card, Azman employs a variety of techniques like scraping, splashing with work placed on the floor. The mantra of the artist, Azman Hilmi, is: “Home is the paradise.” So sit down and as Bugs Bunny would say, ‘Unlax,’ and be appeased by the soothing warm colours of the painting, with the nice reflection of the silvery teapot affording light in the interior with curtains and carpet. Azman Hilmi catapulted into the art scene with his Major Award triumph in the coveted Young Contemporary Artists (Bakat Muda Sezaman) competition. It was a mixed media collage of dangerously looking tools, sharp and heavy, and inspired by American Pop artist Jim Dine. But Azman’s oeuvre is completely the opposite, very home-y scenes of still-life, interiors or gardens with lots of flowery plants, and reminiscent of the works of Henri Matisse, Vincent Van Gogh and in the streaks and splashes, Jackson Pollock. Azman received his BFA at the Mara Institute of Technology. He taught part-time at his alma mater from 1991-1993, before becoming an instructor in hand-drawn batik to less-abled people (OKU or orang kurang upaya) at the SM Pendidikan Vokasional Khas in Shah Alam. He has had three solos so far – at the now defunct Art Salon, Bangsar (2001), Artseni in Starhill, Kuala Lumpur (2006) and Gehrig Art Gallery (‘Journey of Colour,’ 2015) in Penang. His other prizes include 1st Prize in an orchid painting competition at The Mines (2001) and incentive awards from Galeri Shah Alam’s open show in 1996 and 2015, besides another at Pelita Hati House of Art in 2010. He had also taken part in the Malaysia Eye exhibition in London in 2013, and the Asian International Artists Exhibition in Seoul, South Korea, in 2009 and 2010.