The colours look diluted in a lighter shade of pale like a long-drawn cooing whisper as the main composition in a diagonal slant fills up an irregular shape, leaving the sides swimming in a sea of light grey. There are no configurations, just Datuk Ibrahim Hussein’s gamut of parallel lines in spurts, staccato squiggles and longer under-stated red vertical lines. The colours sometimes bleed into a transparent wash, more like a running stain. This is a fine example of Ibrahim’s unplanned spontaneous spurting of lines, solitary and in tandem and rhythmic and swirling everywhere. Datuk Ibrahim Hussein was the first Malaysian artist featured in the Venice Biennale (Smithsonian Institute Workshop, 1970). In 1977, he exhibited alongside Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali in Kuwait. He was a celebrity recipient of the World Economic Forum’s Crystal Award (1997). In 1986, he was accorded a Retrospective by the National Art Gallery. He celebrated the opening of his Ibrahim Hussein Museum and Cultural Foundation in Langkawi in 2000 with the Langkawi International Festival of Arts. He had also organised the Club Mediterranee Asian Arts Festival in Cherating (Pahang) and Bali (Indonesia). He won the Monte Carlo art prize in 1984 and was awarded Venezuela’s Order of Andres Bello (1993), and Chile’s Order of Bernardo O. Higgins (1996), besides the Japan Foundation Award (1988) and the Anugerah Tokoh Melayu Terbilang (2007). He studied at the Byam Shaw School (1959-1963) and the Royal Academy in London (1963-1966).