Creating Paradoxes

Ronnie Ahmed seems to dissolve the boundary of the familiar world in his recent paintings. And the movement is from a rational one to a metaphorical one. Sometimes Ronnie’s visions are apocalyptic and on many occasions they are paradoxical. Often, his pictures initially seem like a part of a greater puzzle that in the end leads to enlightenment.

His subjects are philosophical, even pseudo-philosophical. They often question the basis of reason and philosophy. They even endeavour to take us beyond everyday ideas. The contents and expressions in them seem too intangible. One’s sense of logic takes a battering after one has savoured all that Ronnie has amassed in his second solo, interestingly titled MythoRonnie, held in March at Alliance Francaise, Dhaka..

Ronnie has developed visual stimuli and knowledge from the past and present to form a realm that straddles the subconscious. And the subconscious bent of the artist explores and brings out a spectrum of forms and narratives, the twin ingredients that make up his creations. Ronnie, in fact, is a storyteller of the absurd, and he tells his stories in an unusually witty way, often incorporating a lot of sarcasm.

A huge canvas in the show playfully includes elements from early civilisation to our technology-laden present. The work carries an interesting title After Having a Great Deal of Imperialism we are Waiting for Mr. Beckett. The work intermingles Ronnie’s usual hybrid figures with androids to reveal a bleak scene of futility. The whole image is filled with hybrids, androids and a mechanical mixture creating a caricature of real world achievements and embodying the paradoxical nature of reality.

Paradox, indeed, is a familiar subject of the artist. Paradoxical titles abound in his show held at Alliance Française, Dhaka. The Man Who Discovered Planet Earth, Forms are Not Always Formal, or Too Much of Population Sometimes is a Solution to Art and Write Against Everything Even Against Yourself are some prime examples. Write Against Everything Even Against Yourself showing a weird machine-like thing holding a pen in its metal wire tentacle and The Man Who Discovered Planet Earth depicting a man who uses a real umbrella, are two outstanding testimonies to the spectrum that Ronnie explores in his second solo. These works push the boundary of our imagination well beyond the quotidian. In fact, it is the ability to extend the frontiers of consciousness that makes Ronnie’s art stand out.

Ronnie Ahmed seems to dissolve the boundary of the familiar world in his recent paintings. And the movement is from a rational one to a metaphorical one. Sometimes Ronnie’s visions are apocalyptic and on many occasions they are paradoxical. Often, his pictures initially seem like a part of a greater puzzle that in the end…