For Ahmad Zakii Anwar dealing with Realism in the later 1990s, his 1994 work of a kecak dance under the self-explanatory “dark moon” registers a clandestine ritual by a fireplace or places as a nocturnal open event. Those not following Zakii may be perplexed at first at the hazy atmosphere with off-focus figures huddled around, especially with his brand of Urban Realism (later Urban Dark Realism) from his Smokers series in 1997 onward.

After he graduated with a degree in Graphic Design at the Mara Institute of Technology in 1977, he went into advertising and was hugely successful. But he decided to quit to go full time into Art, and his mid-career survey exhibition (at Galeri Petronas) titled Disclosure in ...