Bones and sinews

Ahmad Zakii Anwar

October 22 - November 23, 2011

Selected Works

“O brother, what you really are is a notion; the rest of you is bones and sinews”

– from the Masnavi of Jalaluddin Rumi

“Whether or not he cares what you think of his art or its subjects, he cares how you see it. He is fascinated by the fact that the prefigurations (as it were) of the human body that already  exist in your own mind so powerfully shape your regard for his art.”

– from the Bones and Sinews exhibition catalog by Peter Frank

Artist Ahmad Zakii Anwar is fully aware of the limitations inherent in any artistic practice. With his upcoming exhibition Bones and Sinews, an ambitious installation of ten new representational charcoal-on-paper works, Zakii asserts the traits that have made him arguably the pre-eminent figure in Malaysian contemporary art: a technical proficiency so severe and an aesthetic simplicity so commanding that, to viewers of his work, they represent the zenith of present day art-making. Zakii exhibits his newest work in Bones and Sinews at AndrewShire Gallery in Los Angeles, October 22 – November 23, 2011.

In Bones and Sinews, Zakii depicts the nude male human figure in exacting detail. Installed under the dimmed lights of AndrewShire Gallery’s main gallery space, this exhibition is designed to appear like a shrine, resulting in a meditative study in anatomy. Under these darkened conditions Zakii’s large-scale charcoal on paper works are as hyper-realist as they are haltingly self aware; for every meticulously rendered detail in Bones and Sinews, Zakii’s artwork evokes a spiritual state while simultaneously exposing the truth about exactly what it is, namely, a work of art—a tactile application of media upon paper.