Anurendra Jegadeva is one of the most established Malaysian contemporary artists in recent times, his works encompass religion, culture, tradition, politics, love, migration and violence. Multimedia, assemblages, installations, paintings or in accordion folders, J. Anu uses media to dramatise his subject and message. In the essay, The Melancholy! The Melancholy!, Eddin Khoo wrote: His (J. Anu’s) remains, essentially, an aesthetic sensibility conditioned by melancholy — a painter of nostalgia and the sentimental — offering a distinctive insight into the trappings, contradictions, conflicts, even complacency, that assail when, as in Malaysia, all worlds collide. A great narrator, his works reference his own life experiences as well as the foibles and plight of his people. Artist, journalist, lawyer — J. Anurendra has been all, but it is in art that he excels and excites. Certainly, one of the brightest contemporary artists in his 50-something age-group. He did his MFA at the Monash University, Melbourne (2003) after a Foundation in Art and Design at Oxford Polytechnic (1987) and LLB Honours at the University of London. After a tame first solo in 1992, J. Anu has come up with several head-turning exhibitions culminating in Sacred Altars in 2017. His other notable solos include My God Is My Truck, Conditional Love and Melancholic Mantras.