This painting depicts three women of different races (Malay, Chinese, Indian) dancing gracefully. ‘Fat’ is not ugly, ‘Fat’ is not heavy. Self-taught Harris Ribut is known for his overly plump women doing household chores or dancing merrily. When they move, it’s like loaded musical notes in motion, with its own rhythm and rhyme. And the curves are well accented. The forms are distinctly voluminous but there’s nimbleness and grace as these gargantuan women do not have elephant feet. Just like the Chinese kung fu superstar Samo Hung, who only looks obese but packs nifty punches and kicks and can outrun a lot of ‘normal’ sized people. Harris, who just decided to go into painting one day, based his ‘heroine’ through watching his mother, who is big sized, but could accomplish so many chores with ease and in good time. He himself is a ‘little’ on the plus-size. Harris started being a street artist and started learning painting at the Angkatan Pelukis SeMalaysia (APS) base. He worked as a paste-up artist in a publishing house. He then joined a Bahasa Malaysia daily as a graphic artist, then art director, and was even a reporter and a sub-editor. At one time, he had a pondok base at the artist’s colony in Conlay, under the Malaysian Handicraft Centre, Kuala Lumpur. His wife, Fauziah Ismail, also paints, but of exaggeratedly thin women.