There's no antidote to tiredness and stress of mind and body than sleep. As in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth (Act II, Scene II): “Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care, The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course, chief nourisher in life’s feast.” Yet, as in the refrain in Paul Anka’s 1975 hit, I Don’t Like To Sleep Alone from his Feelings album, sleep is not so sound (nyenyak) if there is no companion beside, as solace and maybe even to hug. When Paul Anka’s song first ruled the airwaves, Datuk Ibrahim Hussein, or Ib as he is popularly known, was already married, to Sim, after a whirlwind romance when he was a resident artist at Universiti Malaya. Sim famously gave him a set of graphic pens that became one of his trademarks, animating his veneer of parallel lines over his composition. Here, the large expanse of smooth opera mauve tones seems to aid the soporific effect, what with its being symbolic of devotion and femininity. The coalescing figures are cuddled intimately together resplendent in dreamland bliss. Datuk Ibrahim Hussein is Malaysia’s most iconic on the international art scene, having been accoladed with the hugely prestigious Crystal Award given by the World Economic Forum. He was the first Malaysian to have taken part in the Venice Biennale (under the Smithsonian Institute Workshop programme) in 1970 and was featured in the tripartite world exhibition with Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali in Kuwait in 1977. Tutelage in Byam Shaw and the Royal Academy in London in the 1960s set him on the right track. He was accorded a Retrospective by the National Art Gallery in Kuala Lumpur in 1986, and founded the Ibrahim Hussein Museum and Cultural Foundation in Langkawi in 2000, marking it with the Langkawi International Festival of Arts. He had also organised two Asian Arts Festivals, at the Club Mediterranee in Cherating (Pahang) and Bali. Other awards include the Anugerah Tokoh Terbilang (2007), the Japan Foundation Cultural Award (1988), the Monte Carlo 18th International Exhibition of Contemporary Art (1984), the Order of Andres Bello of Venezuela (1993) and the Order of Bernardo Higgins of Chile (1996).