It was in 1975 that Sim, later to become wife of the gifted artist Datuk Ibrahim Hussein, gave him a set of graphic pens that launched a plethora of masterpieces on canvas that had become his signature style. As the critic Chu Li intoned of his lines: "Each point of rest is also a point of beginning and has no ending. It hums of flux and reflux, innovation and evolution, pregnant with generative tension, regenerative impulses of wave upon wave of the distinctive Ibrahim Hussein lines and colours..." Intrinsic to his early flair for khat calligraphy, the lines transformed into an alchemy of criss-crossing perspectival illusion, sometimes forming a skin epidermy, sometimes just delineating nebulous forms. The bristling, rhythmic lines got animated in works that saw full bloom in the 1980s like Ripples, Dance Of Life (1982), the epic 1,014cm long The Journey (1983), Kecak (1985), Costume (1985), Red, Orange & Core (1984) and Barong (1985). Lines interpenetrating, flowing sinuously, sometimes creating tensions and confusion. Staccato or long, they transform into bundles of wonder worms. Datuk Ibrahim Hussein is an extraordinary gifted artist with three world-acclaimed triumphs. 1) He was chosen in the tripartite exhibition of world art giants together with Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali in Kuwait in 1977. 2) He won the presitigious World Economic Forum's Crystal Award in 1997; and 3) He was the first Malaysian selected for the Venice Biennale under the aegis of the Smithsonian Institute Workshop programme in 1970. He was accorded a garland of prestigious international country awards like 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 the XVIII Prix International D'Art Contemporain de Monte Carlo (1984). The National Art Gallery Kuala Lumpur accorded him a Retrospective in 1986. Besides getting three Datuk awards, he was awarded the Anugerah Tokoh Melayu Terbilang (2007). With his wife Datin Sim, Ib organised the first Langkawi International Festival of Arts in 2000, after setting up his museum and foundation, and also the Club Mediterranee Asian Arts Festival in Cherating (Pahang) in 1988 and Bali (Indonesia) in 1987. His art tutelage was at the Byam Shaw School of Drawing and Painting and the Royal Academy in London. He was also awarded the double scholarship of Fulbright and John D. Rockefeller II Fund that exposed him to art trends in the United States.