Love is in the air, as always, in the art repertoire of Syed Thajudeen, an incorrigible romantic who’s always sanctifying the eternal bliss of love between a couple. A woman in floral sarong, the muse of Cinta Tercipta, floats in a subterranean realm across two panels of the triptych, with admiring fishes like suitors all over and some even nibbling at parts of her body, like a tender caress. Her long tresses are held up by her hands as if in a doa (prayer) and ritual. The woman is in an ecstatic state of Rasa, a heightened mood of emotional bliss. It’s an utopia incarnate of surreal dimensions with even a pair of fishes kissing and lotus buds lolling like procreating cells. This work was not shown in Syed Thajudeen’s Retrospective exhibition at the Penang State Art Gallery in 2015, but was among the 53 works in the Cinta Tercipta… And There Is Love solo exhibition at the National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, in 2006, and which was reprised at Pelita Hati Gallery of Art in 2007. Syed Thajudeen was the first Malaysian artist to receive tutelage at the Government College of Arts and Crafts in Madras (1967-1974), at the time of the birth of modern Indian art with groups like the Bengal School, Calcutta School, Bombay Progressives, Progressive Artists Group and Baroda Group and pioneers like Raja Ravi Varma. Among his notable country-selected exhibitions are the Contemporary Paintings of Malaysia (Pasadena, 1988); Rupa Malaysia (London, 1998); Malaysian Art 1965-1978 (London, 1978); World Expo in Shanghai (2010); Olympic Games art exhibition (London, 2012); and the Bangladesh Biennale in 1983.