Most Read

Of myths and fancies

19 June 2006, 18:00 PM
LIFESTYLE
By Fayza Haq
19 June 2006, 18:00 PM
Art work by Ronni Ahmmed
Ronni Ahmmed, one of the leading surrealist painters in town, will have his solo exhibit at Bengal Gallery from June 21. He undoubtedly established himself after doing his 100 feet scroll on Noah's Ark which combined other elements from world literature such as Kafka's cockroach taken from hisMetamorphosis, fairytales likeRapunzeland our localThakurmar jhuli, Greek mythology, theMahabharata, depiction of Hitler holding the bookWar and Peace, the culture of rickshaw painting. The entire piece was dominated by the Noah's Ark theme, the fact that we are facing a critical time, and that we need a saviour.

In Ronni's paintings we find absurdity and melancholia, woven into stories with significantly different characters. Ronni writes short stories and this affects his paintings. The personalities appear to be doing pointless things at times and this is to drive home the absurd elements in our society. The paintings also criticise different elements in our existence such as imbalance of wealth. Discrimination and social crimes are also included in the focus of the artist's canvas. In his creation is a parallel society which reflects our society with the norms of the artist's newly created world of creatures that appear like rats and potatoes at times. This new civilisation appears to be as if some people found a new existence in a far away island where there are new scientific discoveries. On the canvas we see a society which is sometimes different and at times parallel to our society.

"There is no direct relationship with our real life but there definitely is a metaphysical co-relationship. Poetic elements are present. There is an inclusion of a new written script. The script is connected with the society that I paint," says Ronni. The writing appears like a combination of languages like Roman and Arabic. The present exhibition is called Tales of Pseudo Myth and the characters in the paintings are all mythical. In some of the paintings we get political criticism such as in Meeting of the multinationals and First supper in the garden of mushrooms, Night before the next world war. The latter has a dinner party in which a monstrous cooked snake is served.

Google News LinkFor all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.

This exhibition has some installation items too which includes a boti (cutting instrument) which is shaped like a man. This is called Birds of paradise. There is also the Chariots of rickshaw pullers which questions the power structure of our society. This has three wheels and a strong spiral wire base on top of which is a figure of a man cut from steel. There are prints too like the one titled, You need a rope to hang a person, which is also meant to be a historical criticism.

Ronni writes on art and literature, apart from painting and has a band of his own.