A coy malingering stretch with a soothing ambient light-moss green on top, one of solace and life, makes for a beguiling vibrancy in this essentially horizontal matrix anchored by the bottom fifth of stacked vertical slants of mish-mash of ribbed finger prints, like an anchor. Ambiguity of forms or delineations awash with radiant pastel colour tints add a soporific veneer to the ecstasy of nebulous figures lolling in a landscape blending Nature and abstract patterns. A clear demarcating line registers after the two-fifth band, where everything below is caught in a ceaseless flux of molten forms, static even perhaps, not necessarily definable or real, signifying both a renewal as well as a denouement. The artist Datuk Ibrahim Hussein, or Ib as he is more popularly known, is not known to voluptuate expansively splash of unperturbable green, though he did play with it in some early works like Figures In A Landscape (1973) and Green Pass (1980). But in the few years when he based himself in his fairy-tale Ibrahim Hussein Museum in Langkawi (from 1998), he was perennially enveloped by the lush greenery of the luxuriant Gunung Manchinchang in the vicinity (It must be noted that only 13 trees were cut down, in order to build his museum-in-the-forest at Pantai Tengkorak, the Beach of Skulls, in Datai). Certainly, one of the most extraordinarily gifted and iconic of Malaysian artists, Datuk Ibrahim Hussein boasts of several international accolades, the most prestigious of which is the Crystal Award, in 1997, presented by the World Economic Forum. He was also awarded the Order of Andres Bello of Venezuela (1993), the Order of Bernardo Higgins (Chile’s highest honour to a foreigner, 1996), the Japan Foundation Cultural Award (1988) and Malaysia’s Anugerah Tokoh Terbilang (2007). But it was in 1977 when he was invited for the tripartite exhibition that also featured Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali, in Kuwait, that catapulted him onto the big world stage. Ib was also the first Malaysian artist to have featured in the Venice Biennale in 1970, under the American Smithsonian Institute. On his own terms, he finally accepted a Retrospective by the National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, in 1986. He organised the first, and most successful, Langkawi International Festival of Arts in 2000, after setting up his museum and foundation. With the help of his muse and wife, Datin Sim, he organised the Club Mediterranee Asian Arts Festival in Cherating (Pahang) in 1988 and Bali (Indonesia) in 1987. Ib had his art tutelage at the Byam Shaw School of Drawing and Painting (1959-1963) and the Royal Academy in London (1963-1966). A double scholarship of Fulbright and John D. Rockefeller II Fund in the 1960s saw him in the United States, with two solos in New York to boot.