Everything revolves around a circle which either holds the artery of activity within its circumference or acts as a symbol of perfection. For a touch of romance, it also play-acts as the solitary moon. This circle is most prominent in various of Datuk Ibrahim Hussein's works – May 13, Senyum SeOrang Monyet, Kabuki and Lebai Malang, and others like Rendezvous, Dark Voices and Xenobiosis. The black circle irregularly circumscribed in white is breached in three large areas mainly from the top right and two arterial lines on the top left while another white irregular band forms within. The bottom is buttressed by a large red bar, unusually irregular. The lines look tentative, uncharacteristically uncertain in course, and the renditions ambiguous. Is there something amiss in the diagonal dissect, resulting in two glorious bands of purple? Is it the formation and depiction of life? Datuk Ibrahim Hussein is the most high profiled and world-classed Malaysian artist. He was given the global Crystal Award by the World Economic Forum (1997), first Malaysian to have taken part in the Venice Biennale (under the Smithsonian Institute Workshop, 1970), and he was selected in a Best-of-the-World tripartite exhibition together with Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali in a best-of-the-world tripartite exhibition in Kuwait in 1977. His accolades include 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). On the local front, he was accorded a Retrospective by the National Art Gallery in 1986, awarded the Anugerah Tokoh Melayu Terbilang (2007) and had been conferred the Datuk title three times. He organised the first, and most successful, Langkawi International Festival of Arts, in 2000, after setting up his museum and foundation (2000) in Langkawi. With the help of his muse and wife Datin Sim, they 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.