DOORS OF PERCEPTION
Sarmad Sehbai.
Ahmad
Zoay’s work is an odyssey of self-exploration. Each
painting opens a door of perception within one perspective, evokes
multi-dimensional visions. One can keep on discovering a painting within a
painting according to one’s own subjectivity. The brush strokes, the splash of colours and odd proportions compose a symphony of profound
human experiences. Mr. Ahmad Zoay remains loyal to his vision and does not
believe in short-cuts into the incalculable darkness within exploring the
unmapped regions of human experience. For him cheap realism, reproduction of
simple landscape or still-life are just plain clichés.
He would rather paint the inner nightmare with all its absurdity and horrors
than an unimaginative spray of paint. You will find the recurrent image of a
reduced man in his paintings. This reduced man has some thing to do with the
un-accommodated man of King Lear. It is in sharp contrast to the epical,
spatial and heroic man of Sadequain who has roots in
the traditional heroism of mystics and martyrs. I feel Ahmad Zoay’s concept of
man is nearer to the contemporary image of man who is dis-possessed,
alienated and oppressed groping for his identity in bewildering mesh of silken
lies. He does not seek refuge in the sterile and impotent images derived out of
“Metaphysical Void”. Instead he has the courage to paint the contorted image of
man going through the painful experiences of rebirth.