It was a time of composure and stability for Ahmad Khalid Yusof: He was appointed guest-writer of Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka in 1994; he had settled back into a teaching routine at the Mara Institute of Technology in Shah Alam while continuing to paint at night and during holidays. He was also director of the Shah Alam Gallery, and president of the Malaysian Art Association (MAA). One can find the soothing monochromatic veneer in this Untitled work, the colours are so light and subdued, just like a whisper. An L-shaped lattice of truncated grids make for columns of blue and green and a rust-brown (sepia over blue) patch, with a frontispiece of orange suffusion, with a band of sepia in the middle rung and in two oblong grids on top. It's an ode of praise to one's love, someone close to the heart. The unifying element is the squiggles of cacing-like (worm-like) Jawi calligraphic script from his Alif-Ba-Ta iconography of 1971, the letterings running all over, breaking barriers of space like prayer call of the azan. Ahmad Khalid Yusof is one of the very few Malay artists who somehow eluded the 'mandatory' Mara Institute of Technology (ITM) treadmill, having been educated at the Malayan Teachers College in Kirby, Liverpool, before continuing at the Specialist Teachers Training Institute in Kuala Lumpur. He was fortified by further studies at the High Wycome and Wincester Art School (1965-1969) in the United States, before doing his Masters at the Ohio University in 1976. On his first return, he taught at ITM, from 1970 and was there until 1989, when he retired as deputy dean of Academic Affairs. He had served as director of the Shah Alam Art Gallery between 1991-1997, and was founder-president of the Malaysian Artists Association, which when under his helm organised painting trips to Vietnam and Tasik Cini.