‘Inner Certitude’: Mohiuddin Ahmed’s solo exhibition explores themes of environmental change

In a materialistic world, unaesthetic reality destroys a person’s will to live, as it only gives rise to unfulfilled yearning. The only way to survive is to live with imagination that can be created as something tangible. Thus, artist Mohiuddin Ahmed decided to extend his imagination where the sky is the limit. And his relentless hard work has given birth to a versatile collection of artworks that are being displayed at Alliance Française de Dhaka (AFD).


La Galerie at AFD inaugurated “Inner Certitude”, the first solo art exhibition by artist Mohiuddin Ahmed, on July 10. The ceremony was attended by eminent artists Professor Emeritus Rafiqun Nabi and Professor Syed Abul Barq Alvi. The Director of AFD, François Chambraud, presided over the event. Professor Alvi, in his speech, praised the artist. Professor Nabi spoke about the artist’s amazing skill in using pen to create finished tonal variations, which give the impression of mezzotints. He added that the artist excels in creating compositions and detailing objects in his art that provide optical illusions. François explained that Ahmed’s work explores the close relationship between people and the environment. He added that his work blends abstraction and reality, using visual metaphors to reflect environmental change, changing ways of life, and the delicate balance between humanity and nature.


Mohiuddin Ahmed completed his BFA in 1993 and MFA in 1995 from the Fine Arts Department, University of Chittagong. After participating in several group exhibitions throughout his student life and career, he has decided to exhibit his life’s versatile artistic work in his first solo art show. He has developed his own creative language where reality, symbolism, and surrealism altogether have created a deeper dialogue of memory, imagination, and human experience with the visible world.


Most of the art pieces in La Galerie are done with pen and ink, some with watercolours and others with acrylic paints. There is a mixed-media series as well. Ahmed did two drawings—one on Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and one on Major Ziaur Rahman—in his ongoing series of five legends of our Liberation War. The “Desh” series is the highlight of the exhibition, where the drawings contain silhouettes of elephants—the biggest land animal—symbolising survival, resilience, wisdom, and memory. This series puts the elephants and our cities in the same visual narrative, embodying their independence, decreasing habitats, and the environmental changes they face on a regular basis as they fight to survive.


Ahmed uses the painstakingly beautiful and time-consuming dot technique that, according to François, reminds him of the Neo-Impressionist practice of George Seurat, Paul Signac, and, to a certain extent, Vincent van Gogh. His “Daily Thoughts” contains his spontaneous surrealistic drawings that are small in size and yet mighty in presence. There is also some experimental geometric work with acrylic colours.

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