Ahmad Khalid Yusof (AKY) produced some of the most spiritually sublimed paintings in a new genre inspired by the blessings of Allah in his life, including the hardship years when his father was sent by the Japanese to teach the Malay language at the Tenri University in the Nara Prefecture in 1941-1945. He was between 7 and 11 years old then. AKY, whose uncle was the great Malay literati Za’ba, infused his works with Jawi khat calligraphic squiggles based on the Islamic Alif-Ba-Ta alphabets even before the Back-to-Roots exhortations of the National Cultural Congress in 1971. Such is the repetitive patterning caused by the truncated khat and oft suffused with azure colours, that his works are like a visual azan and in Western eyes, a kind of Optical Art. The result was something lofty, with whiffs of fantasy and cosmic even, but in this particular work, a bird’s eye view of a hilly slope is discernible. His works are a prayer in itself, and it got so touching in works produced during the year after his wife’s death on March 27, 1989, when the loss was palpable. But 1988 was happy times, coming a year before his retirement. AKF was selected for the Contemporary Paintings from Malaysia at Asia-Pacific Museum in Pasadena in July-October 1988. He also took part in the 3rd Asian Invitational exhibition in Fukuoka, Japan, in July, and was guest-curator of the Aseambankers show that October-November. Ahmad Khalid Yusof studied at Kirby, Liverpool (1956-1958), High Wycome (1965-1966), Winchester Art School (1966-1969), and Ohio University (MFA, 1975-1978). He taught at the Teachers College in Kota Baru, Specialist Teachers Training Institute (1963) and the Mara Institute of Technology (1979-1989). He was made Shah Alam Art Gallery director from 1991-1997. AKY was also guest-writer at Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka in 1994, and the founder-president of the Malaysian Artists Association (PPM) in 1979.