Samsudin Wahab paints in response to events that make headlines all over the world. His work is therefore often political, but always with the twist of taking place in a fairy-tale environment of his own invention. “It’s like my own newspaper. It’s like my own media, and I have to deliver.” This painting is a reaction to the building of the Israeli West Bank barrier, a result of conflict between Israel and Palestine. “The wall is exactly like a trap, the way they engineered it - a way to abolish Palestinian people. I’m not siding with the Israelis or the Palestinians… but this is the logical side for me, it’s the human side.” The painted wall contains Samsudin’s camouflaged self-portrait, a visual tool to express both the artist’s own voice and the idea of individual social responsibility. Elsewhere, several characters are gripped with terror as the space closes in around them. Their faces are versions of The Scream (1893) painted by Symbolist Edvard Munch. “Sometimes I have to deliver the idea very fast because if I take too long it’s not valid anymore. The most important thing to me in art is the idea. And so sometimes I think I need help from previous artists. I use Western modern art to insert icons - sometimes that’s the easiest way for me to deliver an idea to the audience.”