Devi At Rest has that lazy, malingering afternoon feel but with a decidedly sensual ring. That is Anurendra Jegadeva, or simply J. Anu, the absolute maharaja of the visual language. J. Anu has certainly become one of the most refreshing artists from the Malaysian art scene, with subtle yet critical representations of his Sri Lankan Tamil heritage — culture and tradition, politics, social conventions and changes. He has raised the attention of many since his first solo at the Civic Centre in Petaling Jaya in 1992. A series of provocative narratives of ‘painted stories’ followed thereafter highlighting social commentaries such as identity and culture, liberation theology in Sri Lanka, women and migrant condition. 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, as well as the recent MA-NA-VA-REH — Love, Loss and Pre-Nuptials in the Age of the Great Debate.