Het Signaal

DHIRADJ RAMSAMOEDJ AND THE SIGN
Whenever Adjie (grandma) heard an owl she would get angry. She would start screaming and cussing in an attempt to scare the owl away. She saw it as a sign that somebody was about to die. That’s why little Dhiradj was always afraid of owls. He thought: ‘the owl will come and get you, will grab you with his big claws and take you away.’

Now he looks at it differently. He sees the owl as a messenger who brings bad news. In many folk stories and myths, wise people are sent to convey messages. That is why Dhiradj’s current image of the owl, more closely resembles the western concept of the owl as a symbol of wisdom.

The painting that Dhiradj made for the Thalia 180 year exhibition is rife with symbolism.

The background of the painting has the color of old books, old photos and posters of Thalia. This color can also be seen in the eyes of the giant owl depicted on the canvas. Dhiradj has painted with ashes. Because the gray ash looked more like black on the canvas, he used white paint in order to reach the effect of various gray tones and black. The ash represents that which is left over from your body after cremation. It symbolizes renewal. When part of a forest burns down for example, it becomes food or fertilizer for new plants.

The painting is based upon memories from his youth and Dhiradj’s own interpretation of life. In addition to the owl, religious films that Adja and Adjie (grandpa and grandma) used to watch also play an important role in the painting. A recurring image in these films is a person who stands on earth and prays to God or talks to the ancestors. Or sometimes it’s the other way around and God or the ancestors speak to the person from heaven. Dhiradj sees life as a cycle, a wheel that keeps turning around. One comes and goes, and others will keep coming thereafter. People keep coming just like products on a conveyor belt. They are identical almost as if they were produced in a factory.

He has applied straight lines to the canvas, all with the proportions of an A4 sheet of paper. The dimensions of the painting measuring 1.76 x 2.50 meters have these exact proportions.

The straight lines are for balance. Dhiradj added red food coloring to the gray paint to create the lines, which is why they have a reddish brown color. The use of food coloring symbolizes food, which is a basic necessity for humans in order to stay alive.

Dhiradj is of the opinion that a lot of innovative plans will have to made in order to breathe new life into Thalia. In this day and age many people will first choose the movie theater TBL, just like children who are rather plastered to a television screen and much less inclined to draw, paint or do crafts.

With his 31 years of age, Dhiradj Ramsamoedj is the youngest artist in the exhibition De Dragers van het beeld [The Carriers of the Image]. He has however, as a young Surinamese artist, had a good and quick start, with already three solo exhibitions, various national and international group shows and a total of four Artist-in-Residencies in four different countries: the Netherlands, France (Paris), Trinidad & Tobago and Aruba.

TEXT Kit-Ling Tjon Pian Gi, 2017