Writing has been used as a medium to document human existence for the past five thousand and five hundred years. It is the medium chosen to convey the musings of this transient world and shine a light on the eternal or internal that memorializes, fears, desires, chronicles, aspires and perhaps dreams of the many civilizations that have passed; helping them to navigate and form resolute for the basis of their cultural existences.[i]

Ruheel’s oeuvre, given his training in calligraphy, has continually displayed an extensive use of text as a medium. He writes, sculpts and visualizes accounts and stories, which make him contemplate and interrogate history, philosophies and time.[ii] It is these perceptions that the artist plays with, unveiling narratives that create visuals in our minds.

In this two-week exhibit at Canvas Gallery, Muzzumil Ruheel produced a body of work ‘A Guide to Nonsensical Dreams’ that questions the notions of what is a dream, and what is a reality. His work invites the viewer to have a dialogue upon the philosophical questions immanent in the artwork, from the smallest detail to the larger picture and body of work as a whole.[iii]

According to Ruheel, there’s a perpetual negotiation of what we have and what we want, and an even more pressing question: what is our reality? The artist answers; maybe the reality we knew was a dream and we have just woken up or perhaps we have just gone to sleep.  However, one could argue living your dreams does not mean being outside of reality, it could also mean being in a greater reality: a possible reality. “Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.”[iv]

For this series, Ruheel has worked with ink, acrylic and acrylic lacquers on canvas. His work is a poetic celebration of the juxtaposition between the representation of what could be a dream and what could be a reality. Through their perfectly balanced and arranged compositions, his paintings represent a state of introspection that one aspires to achieve through meditation in order to attain a heightened state of awareness. There’s an artistic rhythm that can give his calligraphy a sense of meaning without the words themselves needing to be read. Their forms push and pull you in as they permeate into the canvas, forming layers upon layers, giving the intangible ideas of dreams a form as to how they heighten and fade out over time.

Among the many of his works, in particular ‘Don’t Talk Nonsense’, letterforms (in perhaps the only legible Nastaliq script style[v] in the series) crowd the landscape that bleeds into the canvas with stark tones of yellows and reds that cut through the words. Like the light that seeps in through the crack of the door, it nudges one to take a stand for the kind of reality they want to place their faith in. On the other hand, the works ‘Imagining the Light’, ‘Walking Amongst the Clouds’ and ‘Deferred Dreams’ give the viewer a sense that one might be standing behind a wall with a little (read: subjective) window through which the possibilities of a dream, an aspiration, or an alternative reality exist just out beyond¾ enough to pique or stir a curiosity to go out and reach for it.

Whereas, ‘A Contest with the Sun’ is a full-scaped image of the expanse that lies behind this ‘imaginary wall’, of perhaps the reality? A dreamscape of yellow hues resembling a landscape with the sun eclipsing on the horizon. Teamed with his stylistic calligraphy at the base that stretches far into the seeming landscape, one could say it instils the idea of what manifesting hopes, dreams and desires could look like.

And finally, ‘How to Keep Dreaming’, with its delectable palette of pinks that blend slowly into the sea green with an obelisk of words in the middle of it, as the title suggests, guides the viewer how to suspend one’s self in the middle of it all.

Among the many philosophical questions that Ruheel’s inquiry presents, does the work portray the longings and yearnings for that which we aren’t, or can’t do, or don’t have? Or could one counter by suggesting it be better if aspirations are grounded in rationality, emotion, idealism or pragmatism? The answers are not at all straightforward. It’s safe to say that at the end, we all wish to reconcile our dreams and realities— at least to a certain extent!

Muzzumil Ruheel’s solo show ‘A Guide to Nonsensical Dreams’ was showcased at Canvas Gallery from Monday, 25th January 2021 till Thursday, 4^th February 2021.