Masks with all its potency and ‘guile’ are used in Yusof Ghani’s compelling series of the same name from 1992 to 1996, as ready symbols of caricatures commenting on mostly the unsavoury part of human behaviour. He was inspired by a college excursion to Sarawak in 1988, and at an international festival in Sarawak in 1991, with a repertoire of Dayak masks, especially related to Kayan and Kenyah hudoq rituals. There, the masks are ceremonial as well as curing properties, while others with more grotesque images are used as protector talisman. From the noticeably masks, the visages are more confrontational than persuasive. This is from the first of two Topeng series, the second starting in 1995 after a visit to South Africa in 1994. Both Topeng series were shown at Galeri Citra in 1993 and 1995. He revisited the theme in a solo exhibition entitled The Masks We Wear Is One at Chan Hampe Galleries in Singapore in April-May 2013. Yusof Ghani worked in art-related jobs for 10 years before his art education in the United States and he started lecturing at the Mara Institute of Technology, and held the rank of Associate Professor. He graduated with a MFA at the Catholic University, Washington (1983), after obtaining his BFA (Graphic Art) at the George Mason University, Virginia (1981). His major works were produced after his American exposures: Tari, Topeng, Wayang, Hijau, Segerak, Biring, Wajah and Ombak. In 1985, he won the Minor Award in the PNB art competition in KL. His base gallery, Tapak, organised the Shah Alam Biennale in 2016. Yusof Ghani made his London debut in an exhibition, Segerak VI – Transcendent Figures, at the Asia House in April 2017.