Within the lines

Muzzumil Ruheel consider himself 'a story teller who continuously questions' hence all of his paintings asked various questions but their answers were left to be found out by the viewers. He translated his feelings, experiences and observations in his artworks that were like tales having many parts that were joined by different events and surprises.
In his latest body of work titled "In between the Lines" presented at Art Dubai 2018 by Canvas Gallery, Karachi Muzzumil has used various mediums and materials to present his thoughts visually from paintings, sculptures, photographs, installations to various objects, performances and audio and video pieces that helped assemble his thoughts along with some facts and some fictional situations and characters in a poetic sequence so that the viewers can not only recognize but also understand the theme of his art pieces .
The images he has chosen for portraying his subjects were familiar to people and hence helped viewers in understanding the hidden messages. Some of his paintings narrate a socio-political, historical or geographical tale while others unfolded interesting personal stories using conceptual and visual materials symbolically.
He used various forms of narratives such as Arabic and Urdu calligraphy in his compositions and also with old photographs that reminds people of their past. These black and white photographs are windows to the past as they cherish many beautiful memories for the coming generations.
The appearance of characters in the compositions seemed muddled as they were illegible and looked as if written hastily. These scribbled words or characters hid the real meaning but on the surface the words may sometimes seemed readable but make no sense or sentence to be understood. Thus a viewer has to understand the meaning what is written within the lines.
Almost all of his paintings were based on an ancient story of people which has passed on from generation after generation from the word of mouth. These legendary stories neither denied by anyone nor confirmed by people who heard them from their forefathers. These stories are like inherited traditions or values that supposed to be passed on from generation to generation since the time immemorial.
According to Muzzumil "My works are fictitious extracts of my interactions small accounts of situations that I have witnessed through living the lives of people, animals and inanimate objects. I am narrating overheard conversations, variations in perceptions of personalities, bigoted confessions of demagoguery and pretentious, prejudice stories of bravery. These details are usually forgotten, as most people are busy and entangled in living their lives."
Hence he likes to spread stories just like a gossip because a gossip is the most favorite pastime for people around the world. The information traveled from one person to another and so on. It creates a network of information traveling from one corner of the world to another in few seconds. Chatting is not new to world societies as people indulge in gossips in their leisure time and during their daily chores as well. The information in information technology age has became so fast and widespread that confirming what is right and what is wrong has became difficult for people. But still people gossip because otherwise they will get bored and hence hearsay flourishes in all societies of the world.