The seventh solo art exhibition by artist Kazi Sayed Ahmed titled ‘Surface as Symbol’ has begun at La Galerie of Alliance Française de Dhaka. The inaugural ceremony of the exhibition was held on Friday, 31 August. 

Eminent artist Monirul Islam was present at the event as the chief guest whie Reaz Uddin Al-Mamoon, managing director, Epyllion Group and Dewan Sayeedul Hassan, joint secretary of Ministry of Road Transport and Bridges also attended the inaugural ceremony.

Kazi Sayed Ahmed has always been infatuated with extraneous materials. As an artist seeking to inscribe new meaning into the surface, he has developed a signature stratagem of employing jute hessian to refer back to ‘life’. Without resorting to verisimilitude, he is now able to align the painted space with the space that lies outside.

At one point in his life, Ahmed explored the coexistence of representational elements and evacuated the surface area of the painting. If he showed an apparent allegiance to academic realism in his representation of the real elements, the readers should be aware that the same artist treated the surface as a positive field of vision, which is considered as negative space in the academia. Space is usually considered neutral, but at the behest of this young painter, the same element has created an opportunity to render it as neural. Though as an artist, Ahmed seems to avoid the extremes of expressive potentials, he always does settle for a middle ground.

Over the last five years or so, he has moved on to a higher plain — he is now inclined to make the best use of his arsenal. His ‘surface’ now appears as if it is the ‘field of action’, rather than vision/visualisation. Articulating their distance from the reality and lived experience, his surfaces are more layered, and are freighted as symbols of lost time and of disappearing nature.

There are around 12 artworks in mixed media are in display for this exhibition. The exhibition will be open to all till Wednesday, 14 September 2018.

Visiting Hours:  Monday to Thursday from 3:00 pm to 9:00 pm, Friday and Saturday (9:00 am to12:00 noon and 5:00 pm to 8:00pm).