Two-year travel and exploration of metaphysical landscape brings ‘Hearsay’

Once again the city is host to an avant-garde form of art, which may all be Latin to the conventional art fan, but it has its own beauty and message to convey.

Bordering on abstract art, it could be called conceptual art, where the artist has his own unconventional way of conveying his message. The artist in question, Muzzumil Ruheel, graduated from the Beaconhouse National University of Lahore in 2009.

Based on 15 works, Ruheel’s exhibition titled ‘Hearsay’ opened at the Canvas Gallery earlier this month. It comprises works that can be considered brain-teasers, as a lot is left to the fertile – or otherwise – imagination of the viewer to figure out what the piece of art is all about.

One of his works, titled ‘In between the lines’, shows a number of people gathered around an animal that has been hunted and is treated as a trophy.

Among other things that can be derived from the work is the way our colonial rulers bequeathed us this cruel pastime and left this as a status symbol of the elite. The work shows a whole lot of people, including Englishmen in their pith helmets and their ladies with exotic headgears, gathered around a trophy.

“My work is not based on a single notion, but is drawn from an open process of observing and gathering visual and conceptual materials,” says Ruheel.

“This entails reflection through historical, social, political and religious views as well as my personal milieu. The resulting mix is usually a whimsical, witty and playful mapping of time.” His body of work is a culmination of research spanning two years of travel and exploration of the metaphysical landscape that surrounds us.

True, his works are an outcome of the metaphysical realm mixed with his observations of the reality; thus, there is an artwork apparently based on the nursery rhyme ‘Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep’.

While in the original nursery rhyme Bo Peep is supposed to be a small girl, Ruheel does seem to have found something metaphysical in the poem.

Having been part of many group and solo exhibitions over the years, Ruheel has impressive antecedents, with shows in the UK (‘Lost in his own garden’), India (‘Letter of apology’), Sri Lanka (‘Open the door’), Germany (‘Digging deep, crossing far’) and Russia (‘Pastures still green’).

Ruheel’s exhibition under consideration – ‘Hearsay’ – will be open to public at the Canvas Gallery until August 10.