In his first trip to London, Datuk Ibrahim Hussein began developing quaint abstract of a coalescence of human forms, lumping together limbs, face and torso or whole figure as it were contorted in awkward entanglement like a haywire Cubist conundrum. A stylistic thrust that spurred London art critic Charles Spencer to comment (1965) about the “conscious overlapping of linear definitions of the figure” and the “bulbous almost sculptural forms”. That was just before Ib, as he is popularly known, started using his self-developed printage technique for a kind of veracity and to be in-tune with the Pop Art shindig of the day. Couched in subdued pastel tones, the work revealed Ib’s incipient use of stabilising ‘horizon’ line and broad stanchions, in this case, holding up the bulbous contraption of ambiguous forms. The year 1967 was the start of a heady double boost of the Fulbright travelling scholarship and the John D. Rockefeller III Fund Fellowship. It was a time of adrenalin overdrive for Ib, as the artist is popularly known, with iconic works such as My Father And The Astronaut, Lebai Malang, Pak Utih and Chairil Anwar and May 13. Works from Ib’s late 1960s irrepressible energy of creativity could be sourced only from private collections, and this presents a treat. From the title, viewer may interpret it as a concept of dualism, depicting how obviously opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another.   With awards like the Crystal Award, participation in the hugely prestigious Venice Biennale in 1970, what with a tripartite exhibition in Kuwait in 1977 with Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali, Datuk Ibrahim Hussein is incontrovertibly Malaysia’s most internationally iconic artist. Tutelage at Byam Shaw followed by the Royal Academy in London burnished his credentials like no other. Malaysia’s National Art Gallery accorded Ib a Retrospective, followed with great fanfare, in 1986. A triple Datuk and awards such as the Anugerah Tokoh Terbilang (2007), the Japan Foundation Cultural Award (1988), the Order of Andres Bello of Venezuela (1993) and the Order of Bernardo O’ Higgins of Chile (1996) made him an artist extraordinaire. Ib was also a visionary, setting up the Ibrahim Museum and Cultural Foundation in Langkawi in 2000 and celebrated it with the Langkawi International Festival of Arts. He also organised the Club Mediterranee Asian Arts Festival in Cherating (Pahang) and Bali.