작품 상세

The Adonis form, in its bare physicality celebrating beauty and strength, is also a divine prayer. Ahmad Zakii Anwar is able to explore the meditative allure of anatomy beyond just shapes and forms with a homage to Creationism. It’s more structured and calculated, with a refinement of lines and tones, unlike in his charcoal works which thrive on raffish and spontaneous strokes of stark monochromes. It’s often couched in darkened background to bring out the figure as well as to add a dash of mystique. This work was shown in Disclosure, Zakii’s midcareer survey exhibition at Galeri Petronas, Kuala Lumpur, in 2008. Ahmad Zakii’s handling of figures was superb when his Smokers series exploded in his exhibition at Valentine Willie Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, in 1997. But there is always the darker moods in the figures. Since Zakii graduated in Graphic Design from the Mara Institute of Technology in 1977, he went into advertising and became hugely successful. After Smokers, Zakii concentrated on Fine Art with solos such as Presence (1999), Bones and Sinews (2011) in the United States; Kota Sunyi (Indonesia, 2007); Shadowland (Hong Kong, 2001); Singapore Tyler Print (2007) and Baik Art (South Korea, 2013), etc.