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‘… the poetry of earth is never dead
The wild wind whistles
Through the landscape of soul’

These lyrical lines best illustrate how Dato’ Sharifah Fatimah was driven to poetry and paint. Dato’ Sharifah had just gone to the ruins of the Petra in Amman, Jordan as part of the delegation in the Risalah Dari Malaysia (Contemporary Art by 5 Malaysian Artists). She stunned everyone when she broke free from her usual colour-play with the inclusion of modelling paste into her painting repertoire for a dramatic tactile quality imitating the rock-cut façades of Petra, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1985.

Dato’ Sharifah Fatimah Zubir is known for her unique abstract art infused with divine truth, lyrical symbolism and a spectrum of local colours. She was the Best Student when she graduated from the Mara Institute of Technology in 1971, which she followed up with a First Class Honours for her BFA at Reading University, England in 1976 and her Masters under the JDR III Fund Fellowship at Pratt Institute in New York from 1976 to 1978. She has had solos all over the world since she held her first solo show at Alpha Gallery, Singapore in 1972. She has won several prestigious awards including the Minor Award, Malaysian Landscapes (1972), the Major Award, Salon Malaysia (1979), and the Minor Award in the Young Contemporary Artist in 1981. A curator with the National Art Gallery from 1982 to 1989, she has been a full-time artist since 1990. In 2006, she was bestowed the ‘Dato’ title by the Sultan of Kedah – the first woman artist to have been honoured for her artistic merit.