a visual journal of maldives

New Terrains in Sensuality 01, Mamduh Waheed, Acrylic on Canvas, 12″x8″, 2006
photo:mw

Unfinished water colour, Umair Badeeu

Unfinished water colour, Umair Badeeu

Photos: mw 2006

Sarudhaaru Dhonbe at his home in Male’, May 2006, photo: mw

As part of an assignment for the National Art GalleryI am putting together a catalogue and a small exhibition of Sarudhaaru Dhonbe. This is both exciting and sometimes overwhelming. Exciting because Dhonbe is now over eighty years of age and more or less unanimously regarded by the Maldivian community as the senior most living visual artist whose involvement in the production of visual culture spans a lifetime (in Dhonbe’s case this would be less than 20 years short of a century). The project is overwhelming because I am overly conscious of doing justice to the man and his work in presenting them in the most ‘appropriate’ context, keeping in mind the many considerations I have to address a man who is complex and whose work spreads across diverse and many genres including the painting of cinema advertising posters, souvenir crafts, historical painting and illustration.

Sketch for a portrait by Dhonbe, 2006, photo: mw

An unfinished acrylic work by Dhonbe, 2006, photo:mw

A painting by Ahmed Shuaib depicting the minaret (munnaru) in Male’. The scene of the actual site depcited in the picture has now changed beyond recognition.

Photo: mw 2006