It is not uncommon to use an image of a face covered from the eyes down to suggest ‘omerta’ or the snuffing of free speech. With the title, Last Word, the viewer is curious to zero in on the identity or the circumstances. Is this somebody in the news recently, and are the cursive handwritten script shed any clue to person or event, or is it just something random? Just like the collage in the works, Yusri Sulaiman builds up the layers to camouflage as well as for aesthetic purpose. It could just be a metaphor of self-reflection known onlyto the artist himself or it could be just a ‘portrait’ exercise with a mischievous added value. Dr Suzanne Standkard wrote: “The work of Yusri Sulaiman is a self-reflection; he expresses his thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and motivations through the medium of fabric collage portraiture… The concept of collage, layer upon layer, has symbolic meaning for the layers of his life; finding, keeping, selecting, altering, rearranging and patching fabrics to interpret his inner feelings to reflect himself through his artworks.” Gallery hoppers would remember Yusri, from his odd paintings at the XOAS Gallery and his “Jungle” solo at Wei-Ling Gallery, how Yusri brought up the plight of the indigenous Orang Asli, especially the children onto his canvases for public focus. At the Henry Butcher April 2013 auction, his aboriginal child portrait, Kalee (2015) sold for RM4,950. He has since moved on to other subjects and mixed media using discarded domestic fabric, aerosol spray, polyvinyl chloride glue, nylon cords and graphite on canvas.