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LITERATURE
Ibrahim Hussein: A Retrospective, National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, 1986, illustrated on catalogue, page 101.

“It is all very well when one paints something, another soon recognises, but it just stops there, leaving others to paint stories. The actual story itself the artist cannot tell in words. It is all very well other people can write books about your creation, but to the artist himself, there is always something there that cannot be explained. Perhaps it is his soul, his unison. The artist cannot explain this, but he knows it is there and it is very real for him.”
~ Datuk Ibrahim Hussein

Ibrahim, otherwise affectionately known as Ib, is arguably Malaysia’s most recognisable artist. He was trained at Nanyang Academy of Art in Singapore, and later won a four-year scholarship at Byam Shaw School of Drawing and Painting before finishing at Royal Academy School in London. Recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including the Fullbright Travelling Scholarship and the John D. Rockefeller III Fund Fellowship, in 1970, Ib became the first Malaysian to participate in the Venice Biennale.

It is undisputable that Ib had not only produced an astounding opus of work which established him at the forefront of Malaysian art locally and internationally, more importantly, he had helped elevate the value and status of Malaysian art, while influencing and inspiring the younger generation of artists in the country.

One central motif can be seen throughout Ib’s impressive oeuvre – the human figure. His early training in the British art schools had given him a firm foundation in drawing the human figure. Ib’s figures had transformed from simplified and stylised shapes as seen in one of his earliest works Reclining Women (1957) to aerial views of semi-abstract figures entangled and rolling in fluid unending motions, suggesting scenes of struggle and tumult. Ib’s pictures were inspired by events of human struggle and conflict, among others the demonstrations at Trafalgar Square, London in 1960, the 1969 racial riot in Malaysia, and the 1982 Sabra massacre. However, he was not concerned with the depiction of specific events directly or literally, but rather to convey universal statements on humanity itself.

He once said: “My role as an artist is to portray man’s basic needs on planet Earth and humanity’s universal sharing in God’s little acre – the art of our time provides us ways of seeing, understanding, criticising, and appreciating the world which we live in.’

But Ib’s figures are not what set him apart from the rest; it is the distinctive ever-changing Ibrahim Hussein lines that have earned him such a high level of recognition. It was not until 1975, when Datin Sim, his wife, gave him a set of graphic pens that Ib’s canvases were filled with sensuous lines of varying weight, direction and character. The primary element of line has taken a whole different role on the pictorial surface, liberating the preconceived notions and fulfilling the roles of the other elements of form, shape and dimension customarily used in pictorial composition.

As art critic Chu Li aptly described: ‘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 exuding fluid forms, dancing forms and struggling humanity… His lines have attained all primary and secondary coordinates for placing ourselves in a directionless harmony of chaos, at once suggesting, hinting, symbolising for us a total experience of life.’ This exclusive use of lines had occupied Ib’s canvases right till his very last work, and if it were not for his untimely passing, the possibilities of his lined and striated surface would be inexhaustible.

Embodying the central motif of the human figure executed in the hallmark Ibrahim Hussein lines, Red, Orange and Core is an unrivalled pictorial masterpiece which represents the artist at his best.

Standing 6.5 feet tall and 9 feet wide, the painting engulfs the viewer with its monumentality where fluid lines of soft pastel hues interweave with one another at all directions, splaying out and gathering into clusters to constantly deconstruct and reconstruct morphing forms and depth, engaging the viewer in a continuous journey of visual rhythm.

Unlike Monorobos 1, where darker circles hints at human heads, acting as nuclei of viewpoints and movement of figures, Ib’s later works such as Red, Orange and Core were further abstracted and devoid of representational and descriptive devices. By reducing to the fundamentals of lines, colours and shapes, the painting beckons the viewer to draw parallels with imagery and ideas he is familiar with, challenges the viewer to look instead at his inner self, thereby bringing out latent emotions and feelings while achieving a connection that is unique to each viewer.

Notably, this is perhaps the only piece by Ib with an octagonal motif, framing the central forms while acting as a focal device. This peculiar octagonal shape, unseen in any other published works throughout Ib’s career, alludes to the feng shui trigrams of bagua which are octagonal in shape to represent the eight fundamental principles of reality. The deliberate placement of the octagon across a horizontal band suggests the meeting of figures from both sides to collide and fuse with one another at the core of the octagon.

The less violent configuration of the semi-abstract figures, coupled with the cheery choice of colours, suggest that Ib’s portrayal of the human struggle had slowly taken a more optimistic turn to the unity of figures coexisting amidst conflict. But to try and make out each and every figure from Ib’s labyrinth of lines is to completely miss the point, because after we are all fundamentally the same; we strive to survive within the same environment; we have the ability to feel and to love; and above all, whatever emotions we feel for one another, we are all bound together in one living unison.

Ib had always believed that art is the only way to bring people together, and ‘it is the duty of every artist to limn for his fellowmen the suffering and ecstasy of his age, by bending his strokes, colours and mood to echo the temper and utterances of his times until chaos shall coalesce into harmony’. A celebrated quote by Ib goes, ‘Art is the most important and unifying force that there is – and that it is a celebration of life that can help nations, races and religions come together as one.’

Nevertheless, like all presumption on the concepts and source of inspiration for Ib’s work, one can only guess and wonder while admiring in awe at his out-of-the-world creations. This sense of awe would be further heightened if the viewer learns the fact that the artist was blind in his right eye, due to an accident that came about from playing darts when he was eight years old.

Now that the artist is no longer around, and with the Ibrahim Hussein Museum and Cultural Foundation closed, it is all the more precious for an opportunity to view the works by this gifted mind.

Illustrated on the book Ibrahim Hussein: A Retrospective, Red, Orange and Core was acquired directly from the artist by the present owner shortly after its creation, preserved in pristine condition for almost three decades. Now, this precious gem will finally appear on public view for the very first time.