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Khalil Ibrahim has a natural flair for abstracts, mostly of an organic nature, often with the central area more busy with colours and various shapes simulating a kind of ecstasy, and defined by an arc line running downwards from midway off-right. But the colour tones of his 1980s’ abstracts are more subdued and the composition simpler and almost dream-like, more ruminative than those of his art-college days in London.

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.