Eng Jie Shi’s painting shows the interior of an antique shop nearby to their art school campus, where students sometimes go to find materials to use for drawing class. Among the clutter, the artist chooses to home in on three figures – two Chinese figurine characters and a wayang golek puppet, which appears to have been stuffed in a jar, their details richly coloured in contrast with the duller shades of the objects in the backdrop. We may also note the clock in the back, marking time, and the painting within a painting set on an easel behind the figures.

The artist’s personal response to the collected items in the shop is that “now they look out of fashion but they represent an era when Malaysians had different habits and taste”. Even as we find ourselves peering quite closely at the figures, as they gaze away from us, we feel a distance between us and them, and find it hard to grasp the meaning and significance in this motley array of objects abandoned in an old store, waiting for someone to claim them.