Ziad Kaki:Mystery

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Detail from ‘Mystery’, 2020. Ziad Kaki

Mystery (2020) depicts a disparate group of figures who inhabit the painting’s foreground. The central three figures, who appear as simple silhouettes of colour stretch out their arms searching into the inky depths of the painting’s background. Though the figures are packed closely together, they appear entirely self-occupied, existing in their own worlds, Kaki invokes the suggested mystery of the painting’s title through this disconnectedness. The viewer appears to have stumbled into a film still, caught in a frozen moment of frenzied action.

Kaki disrupts the scene further through a blurring of figurative and abstract elements. In the painting’s background we can trace the outline of a natural mountainous landscape, with sparse trees populating the foreground. Bold blocks of red and green distort the painting’s depth, acting as simple props to support the figures and lending the painting a greater ambiguity.

Mystery uses a variety of vivid, saturated colours to illustrate the raw and surreal emotion of the work. Definite and controlled brushstrokes detail the faces in the left foreground and background. The naive style, mixings of purples and reds, elaborate the figures’ anguish, while the brighter yellow and orange tones lend the painting heat.

The curious monkey-like creature who surveys the scene seems to represent the onlooker of the painting, leaning in intently trying to decipher what is happening. Through his use of colour and simplified form, Kaki creates a scene which offers continued possibilities allowing for renewed interpretations on each viewing and the continued revelation of fresh details.