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Kuala Lumpur artist’s first solo show explores mortality, fear and machine-animal hybridity through hyper-detailed drawings inspired by the unsettling realities of urban roadkill
Malaysian contemporary artist Silas Oo’s debut solo gallery exhibition Roadkill is transforming the grim realities of urban streets into an arresting meditation on mortality, fear and survival.
Running from May 9 to June 7 at The Back Room, the exhibition features 10 ultra-fine line drawings inspired by real roadkill encountered across the city.
Through intricate ink work, Oo reimagines flattened animal carcasses with unsettling mechanical elements, blending flesh and car parts into surreal hybrid forms that explore the collision between nature and machine.
The series reflects Oo’s longstanding fascination with death, existentialism and psychological tension, themes that have evolved significantly throughout his artistic practice.
While his earlier works drew from distorted childhood imagery and pop culture references, Roadkill marks a sharper, more visceral turn. The exhibition strips away fantasy to confront death in its rawest, most immediate form – not as abstraction but as something sudden, mundane and unavoidable.
Each piece captures the brutal banality of roadkill while transforming it into something strangely intricate, forcing viewers to reconsider what is often ignored or discarded.
Oo’s use of acrylic-framed paper works further amplifies this tension, preserving these scenes almost clinically while highlighting the fragility of life beneath urban infrastructure.
Born in 1996, the Kuala Lumpur-based multidisciplinary artist is recognised for his detailed ink drawings and sculptural works, often exploring the darker edges of the human psyche. Roadkill represents his first fully realised solo body of work, positioning him as one of Malaysia’s most compelling emerging artists.
By transforming road trauma into haunting visual commentary, Oo’s latest series offers more than shock value.
It becomes an unsettling but deeply thoughtful reflection on death’s unpredictability, the anxieties of modern existence and the fragile boundary between life and destruction.
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