There is an unspoken thrill of keeping one's head and whole body under water for a spell. Just the soft sonic and an aquatic numbness that seems to keep one in a different realm, without all the aid and encumbrances of scuba-diving paraphernalia. Here, the figure clad in a light black dress is curled up like a baby in the womb, legs crossed slightly at an angle, in a séance-like meditation, eyes closed. A large marine creature glides by from the top left, as if to make sure that everything is Ok, while another larger creature, a whale perhaps, looms in the backdrop. Yes, like in life, the immediate living environment is fraught with many dangers, real and imagined. With Hope, what goes down will come up. Self-taught Latif Maulan's art career reads like a fairy-tale. Somewhat a drifter having worked as a dishwasher, waiter, advertising designer, shopping-complex display artist, he was given a resident's artist stint in Kuala Lumpur, and a fulltime artist in 1992. He decided to venture abroad. To the Big Apple where he sold two large works in the Soloat Collector's Party at Excel Gallery, New York (2000), Australia (2001), a year in East Sussex in Britain as a graphic designer (2002), and six months in Plymouth (2013), where he showed at the Barbican Gallery there. First solo, Parallel Universe, at the Art Case Galleries, Kuala Lumpur, 2006. In 2006, he had already moved into Photo-Realism figuratives from his Nature and still-life themes. A finalist in the 2009 MEAA competition, he won big in the Redbull EhWauBulan showcase in 2016.