Ahmad Khalid Yusof is acknowledged as the foremost Malaysian artist for incorporating and adapting khat calligraphic traditions into modern pictorial compositions. Perjalanan Pandita (Zaaba) was created in honour of the famous writer Zaaba, Ahmad Khalid’s uncle. He used a unique combination of natural elements that merged and interacted with each other, resembling the sensation of propelling rhythms. This refined work is characteristic of Ahmad Khalid’s exploration of abstraction through graceful modulations of forms unified through a palette of azure and turquoise colours. Apart from being an academician at the Mara Institute of Technology, Ahmad Khalid Yusof served as director of the Shah Alam Art Gallery between 1991-1997, and was founder-president of the Malaysian Artists Association (1979), organising painting trips to Vietnam and Tasik Chini. He graduated from Kirby, Liverpool, in 1956-1958, and continued at the Specialist Teachers Training Institute in 1963. He furthered his education at the High Wycombe and Winchester Art School (1965-1969), before his MFA at the Ohio University in the United States in 1976. He also won 1st Prize in the Great Britain Reeves & Sons art contest in 1967, and was appointed guest-writer of Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka in 1994. He was selected for the Contemporary Paintings from Malaysia at Asia-Pacific Museum in Pasadena in July-October 1988. He also took part in the 3rd Asian Invitational exhibition in Fukuoka, Japan, in July, and was guest-curator of the Aseanbankers show that October-November.