This is a call to faith and perseverance, the triumph of, as a somewhat dull azure-blue clarifies from what is an obfuscating blanket over Ahmad Khalid Yusof’s trademark frittered khat coming out of the thickly encrusted rust-brown smears. The calligraphy is like miniscule microcosms, animated in aerial suspension, crinkling through what can be viewed as a symbolic partial eclipse. Perhaps, this is evocative of a nightmarish phase when his father, Muhammed Yusof Ahmad, was hired by the Japanese in place of his brother Za’aba, to teach Bahasa Malaya at University Tenri in Japan, bringing with him his four children. It was during the war years from 1941 to 1945, and his family suffered not only from ration and discrimination but also abject fear in the dark, as the American bombers pounded Japan. Such is the typology and trademark of Ahmad Khalid Yusof since his momentous Alif Ba Ta silkscreen marking the National Cultural Congress at the National Art Gallery in 1971 (Aug 25 - Sept 12), with an affinity to Nature and imbibing the five cornerstones of Islam, namely Testimony of Faith, Prayer, Charity, Fasting and the Haj pilgrimage to Mecca. Apart from being an academician at the Mara Institute of Technology, Ahmad Khalid Yusof served as director of the Shah Alam Art Gallery between 1991-1997, and was founder-president of the Malaysian Artists Association (1979), organising painting trips to Vietnam and Tasik Cini. He graduated from Kirkby, Liverpool, in 1956-1958, and continued at the Specialist Teachers Training Institute in 1963. He furthered his education at the High Wycome and Wincester Art School (1965-1969), before his MFA at the Ohio University in the United States in 1976. He also won 1st Prize in the Great Britain Reeves & Sons art contest in 1967, and was appointed guest-writer of Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka in 1994.