작품 상세

Is what looks like a girl preening her hair facing left in the picture, actually and unusually, fully clothed, and in a dress some more? In this genre using varied colour tones and shades with or without geometric backdrops, Khalil Ibrahim often paints half-naked or even conceivably ‘naked’ figures of men and women working in tandem on the beach front, especially after the fishermen have come back from sea. Apart from the more prominent standing figures, others are nebulously shown sitting around. One of the best southpaws in Malaysian art, Khalil Ibrahim was sent on a Pahang government scholarship to study art at the St Martin’s School of Art and Design in London in 1959-64, for his National Diploma in Design. He was already 30 when he graduated. He spent another year for his post-graduate in 1965. After a very brief teaching stint on his return, he was released from his bond, and he decided to turn full time, and he has been painting fulltime since 1966. But a stroke in 2012 had put a brake to his career. In 1970, he was given his first solo at the Samat Art Gallery, of his batiks and watercolours, and he also had a solo exhibition in Indonesia that year. Khalil was a co-founder of the Malaysian Watercolour Society and rose to vice-president once. His two main exhibitions so far were ‘Khalil Ibrahim: The Art Journey’ at the KL Art Space, Petaling Jaya (2015), and ‘Khalil Ibrahim: A Continued Dialogue,’ at Galeri Petronas in 2004.