작품 상세

Memories are made of these, lines weaving in and out and forming nondescript forms with the light of an Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Never mind if the rambling images are undecipherable, figures and objects perhaps, incoherent even but imbued with the vivacity of living, the joie de vivre. This little parchment of friendship with the extraordinary artist Datuk Ibrahim Hussein's trademark parallel lines, like connecting bands or links running through, serves as a flash of inspiration in unscripted moments, recording a friendship once upon a time, in 1984. All the line composition is couched with a reddish tinge. The legendary Datuk Ibrahim Hussein is incontrovertibly one of Malaysia's most internationally iconic artists. He was given the prestigious Crystal Award by the World Economic Forum in 1997, and was the first Malaysian to have taken part in the Venice Biennale, under the Smithsonian Institute Workshop programme in 1970. And he was with the world's art pantheons in the tripartite exhibition in Kuwait in 1977, the other two masters being Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali. His international awards also include the XVIII Prix International D'Art Contemporain de Monte Carlo, 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), with him accorded momentous solos in Venezuela, Chile and Japan. He was accorded a retrospective by the National Art Gallery in Kuala Lumpur in 1986. He was conferred the Datuk title three times, and awarded the Anugerah Tokoh Melayu Terbilang (2007). He had organised the Langkawi International Festival of Arts in 2000, after setting up his museum and foundation (2000) in Langkawi. With the help of his wife Datin Sim, he had also organised the Club Mediterranee Asian Arts Festival in Cherating (Pahang) and Bali (Indonesia). Ib had his art tutelage at the Byam Shaw School of Drawing and Painting and the Royal Academy in London (1963-1966). He also received a double scholarship of Fulbright and John D. Rockefeller II Fund that saw him in the United States, with two solos in New York to boot.