Ravi Rajcoomar is one of the artists represented in the Moengo Festival of Visual Arts, opening August 15th in Moengo Suriname.
Suicide, installation, 2010.
Statement:
In the beginning of his career portrait and figure drawings were his early inspiration and he made realistic paintings of all kind of objects. In his semi-realistic work the female rounding had a central point and was depicted as a torso or the whole figure. But then one day it all suddenly changed. Human nature was now his biggest fascination and inspiration.
Mural, 2011.
It all begun at a carnival parade where a large group of people were walking with masks on. He was immediately captured by a thought, who all those people were and what’s hiding behind all those masks were questions that started in his mind. Then his inspiration got even bigger and his fascination lies in whom the person really is (the complex character) behind those faces. This led him to an even higher level of observing human beings and their behavior by trying to understand how they see all the positive and negative influences of life which is sometimes so complicated.
Behind the Mask, 2008.
As an artist Ravi Rajcoomar is confronted daily with so many different aspects of life with different people. Some of those aspects are: drugs, relationships, sex, suicide, death, financial problems, child problems and different difficult social circumstances in which people sometimes are. “Sometimes it’s just the right or wrong choice we make and the right or wrong steps we take that puts us in the position or situation we’re in”.
Untitled, 2015.
By observing human beings he discovered even more than that he could ever imagine, the fact that sometimes people around us (can be very close) are not always who we think they are. It’s sometimes just a ‘’mask’’ they put on to make life so difficult for others or to retrieve their goals. “When you look very close you ask yourself the question, is their any one left in this world you can really trust”? It’s sometimes their own impression that makes people who and what they really are. By communicating with someone doesn’t mean that you really know the person, there is always so much you can never know and understand about someone.
You believe what you know and what you’ve been told and the rest remains a mystery, untold and unspoken.
Once again the unknown mysteries of human nature makes his biggest inspiration but also the different aspects of life fascinates him. This led Ravi Rajcoomar to a new period of paintings. At first my paintings were clearly masks, the facial features were clearly legible. Now however his work has developed to a more abstract way of expressing his feelings and thoughts on canvas, paper and other materials.
Installation Moengo, ongoing.
The body of his work is based on past experiences and also the thoughts of human mysteries. Ravi try to create his own impressions of the human race beyond the minds eye. The unrecognizable reflected text in his work is the communication between us but also reflects the mystery and unknown.
The silhouettes, the objects and the collages of image that he use are to tell us about ourselves. The symbols describe the roots (origins) of persons. The colors and colored spaces used in his work describes sometimes the feelings, the sadness, the happiness, the pleasure, the satisfaction, the situations in which we’re in but sometimes the mystery, the unknown, the untold, the unspoken and the unsaid.
At work in a.i.r. studio in Rotterdam
Ravi Rajcoomar work only when he’s inspired and likes to experiment in his work so that’s why he use a variety of materials and tools.