A melange of tendril lines emanating from the left and interconnected in an inchoate way, with two abrupt drops against a muted backdrop of dominant white. Solid and flexible, this lower half stark composition is wedged against a dense dark painterly surface above, with a right-angled white intrusion of negative flow. It’s a delicate play of balance and harmony, between Man and Nature (wind, water and earth) with a dualism inspired by the celebrated Peine del Viento (The Comb Of The Wind) steel-and-rock sculpture of Basque sculptor Eduardo Chillida. The sculpture stood against a low rock promontory in San Sebastian, the sculptor’s hometown, stands like a sentinel, but Dato' Tajuddin Ismail’s adaptation is more interconnected in a tenuous way. Dato' Tajuddin marvelled at interplay of mass, volume and void when he first saw the sculpture in an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London in the 1980s. The work was done during the time of his Simply Red solo at Art Salon, Kuala Lumpur, in May 2002. Dato' Tajuddin draws great strength in his paintings from his solid foundation in graphic design and interior architecture — Graphic Design (Art Centre College of Design in Los Angeles, 1974) and post-graduate Interior Architecture (Pratt Institute in New York, 1979-1981, apprenticed under Massimo Vignelli), apart from the Mara Institute of Technology in Shah Alam (1969-1973). His awards include the Fulbright research fellowship (1987), the Minor Award in the National Drawing Competition (1977), the National Graphic Art competition (1978), Salon Malaysia (1979) and the National Design Council (1994). After retiring as associate professor of Fine Art and Interior Architecture at Universiti ITM, he taught Fine Art in Sunway University, Selangor.