The horizontal veneer s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-s the mood of melancholy and solitary bliss with a female nymph skinny-dipping on her side half-exposed front facing viewer. The model has a vacuous look, which diminishes any sense of sensual allure, though the luscious red lips are inviting. This is typical of Khoo Sui Hoe's somewhat awkward posture in a surreal landscape, an island in the mid-distance in what looks like a large lake. Sky, land and water. And nubile woman. In a placid setting playing on reflections, showing a strange affinity with Nature. American-based Khoo Sui Hoe was honoured with a major Retrospective, The Painted World of Khoo Sui Hoe, by the Penang State Art Gallery in 2007, followed by a mini Retrospective, given by Soka Gakkai Malaysia, in 2017. He was also given a mini-retrospective (1963-2013) by The Art Gallery Penang in 2013. He was accorded a two-part An Overview exhibition at the Private Museum, Singapore, in 2015. Sui Hoe has been a cult artist hero of sorts, becoming a full-time artist immediately after graduating from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in Singapore in 1961. He also started as a gallerist, first with the Alpha Gallery in Singapore in 1972, and revived later in Penang as the Alpha-Utara Gallery in Penang, in 2004.