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Typical of the ‘Fishermen’s Song’ theme of hard work and camaraderie of these works in acrylic and watercolours, Fishermen is a psychedelic take with anonymous industrious figures quietly at work after long hours at sea, and with the backdrop like disco coloured lights to indicate the cheery mood of working together. Clustered together to show the spirit of teamwork, the half-naked figures are rendered in various colour tones with a head-dress wrapped around their foreheads and a sarung around their waists. Perhaps, the Nazi slogan of “Arbeit Macht Frei” (labour sets you free) does exude the sense of emancipation through this work here without the dark memories of the ominous labour camps.

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.