CODE
SERWAN BARAN/ CHEIKHOU BA
14th September 2015
Curated by Mohammed Abou ElNaga

Serwan Baran and Cheikhou Ba are two distinctive artists from two different continents but it is their use of enigmatic visual imagery that unites them. Each artist has perfected a unique language of cryptic artistic expression filled with vivid layered symbolism. Creatures, figures, shapes and numbers form two and three dimensional artworks infused with coded messages. Between physical transformations of bodies and the integration of several beings into one body, we are placed in front of a surrealist scene transforming reality into mythology.

Fantastical scenes are unveiled - a sardonic commentary in which both artists interrogate the deficiencies, contradictions and mysteries of our collective human condition. Questioning scenarios where man is sometimes just a number, marginalised and unimportant and others that explore our eternal, puzzling relationship with mortality.

The mythical realism, used by Cheikhou and Serwan is reminiscent of the legendary realism in the world of drama conceived by the likes of Kafka and Roberto Márquez. A contemporary form of realism where everything from reality and virtuality is blended as if caught between dream and lucidity.

The dialogue between these two bodies of work sparks and flows as it shifts between the two and three dimensional manifestations of each artists encrypted narrative. Challenging the viewer to decipher overt and obscured messages and ultimately crack the code.

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