054

EXHIBITED
Malaysian Artists Association Titian, Hanoi School of Art,
Vietnam, 1992.

Here, Khalil Ibrahim seeks to create a landscape with vibrant, harmonious colour blends of orange, yellow and bands of green and blue. What is different from the normal batik paintings is the collage element as this one seems to be made up of thin corrugated paper. Khalil and Seah Kim Joo, have both developed this technique independently and around the same period during the 1960s. Khalil picked up batik techniques from a supplier of batik dyes in Kelantan, and began experimenting with figures in 1968. In the early years, he even gave demonstrations in foreign countries like in Australia, Singapore, Paris (Maisons et Jardins) and Germany (Cologne).

Khalil graduated with a National Diploma of Design in Fine Arts at the prestigious St. Martin’s School of Art and Design in London in 1964 (post-graduate in 1965). He turned a fulltime artist in 1966 - a career now spanning 46 years. Khalil was a co-founder of the Malaysian Watercolour Society and had his first double solo of London works and Malaysian batiks at Samat Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur in 1970. That year, he also had a solo exhibition in Indonesia, the first Malaysian to have done so. He has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Switzerland and his works has been collected by the National Visual Arts Gallery in Kuala Lumpur, the National Museum in Singapore, Fukuoka Museum of Art in Japan, New South Wales Museum of Art in Sydney and the Royal National Art Gallery of Jordan.