One of Kuwait’s most prolific artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, Jafar Islah is best known for his drawings and paintings, although he also works in sculpture and tapestry. A citizen of the world, he has lived and worked between Kuwait, Denmark, Egypt, France, India, Indonesia, Italy, Turkey and the US. Using symbols, imagery and references from a variety of cultures, his revolutionary oeuvre does not conform to any specific style, medium or ideological-based practice. The Void from 1967 is a sharp contrast to Islah’s more recent, more colourful works which reference places he’s lived and worked. In this earlier painting, a literal “void” is depicted on a stark, black canvas while in the center, where one would expect a central figure or scene, Islah, in a tongue-and-cheek style, has painted a slightly off-centred faint, blue outline of a rectangle. Islah received his BA degree from the University of California at Berkeley and has exhibited widely, including at the Kuwait National Museum, the Cairo Biennale, and the Egyptian Academy in Rome. Most recently, he had a large, solo retrospective at Contemporary Art Platform in Kuwait (2012).