In 2006 Kamen embarked on an extensive series, entitled the 'Is Is It' series; an experimental and deeply existential exploration into portraiture. Taking inspiration from Old Master pictures from the greats such as da Vinci, Velasquez, Holbein and Titian (whose work he had consistently visited in public collections throughout his life) and borrowing from

the textures, pomp, ceremony and powerful stances that characterise such traditional portraiture, Kamen embarks on a complete shake-up of what portraiture can mean and for whom, painting many figures important to him both professionally and personally. His interest and ability to decode and deconstruct Old Master pictures, and adapt them

into poignant explorations and often criticisms into the nature of power, where it is located and what it conceals, is remarkable.

Kamen was fascinated by Old Master portraiture and the palimpsest of cultural and historical truths that inform and construct British culture. Kamen visited the Old Master picture sections of the London public collections repeatedly, devotedly, throughout his life. These visits would inform his painting and artistic gestures, and also his fashion styling,

which at its best and freest was a continuation of these studies. That Kamen was from a colonial Burmese background, whose family had personally suffered from the injustice, violence and enforced fragmentation of British colonialism, makes this exploration of ‘post-colonial’ identity in Britain today all the more fascinating and illuminating.

Kamen wrote of these works:

‘Somewhere between

the now and the present

I find I am lost

I give up searching

ask no questions

the windswept sand

the effortless eagle

is is it

all I call my own

is in the space between ‘

Fluidly sliding between the abstract and the figurative, layered using repeated two-letter words and phrases written or pasted onto the canvas, either freehand in a sort of ‘meta-script’ or pasted from the day’s newspaper, these works use a limited palette of greys, whites, blacks and pinks. It is at this time that the adhesive plaster (either stuck onto canvas,

painted/drawn onto as a canvas, or painted onto the canvas itself) motif establishes itself in his oeuvre. As of today, this series has not yet been exhibited publicly, although in 2023 a work from this series (a double portrait of Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, based on a lenticular coronation card from 1953) was offered for sale by Christie's, the first public

sale of a canvas since Kamen's death in 2015.