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Agony Displayed: The Self Portraits of Raja Azhar

In this recent series of works, Raja Azhar has truly let himself hang lose, pouring out the agony of having to witness the dissolution of a long and difficult relationship.  After much soul searching, he acknowledges that he is part to blame.  However, no matter how much he grieves the blaming game is ultimately self-defeating; no one party is totally at fault.  In a perverse way, the dissolution has been liberating to him though he is unsure which is more painful, the experience as it should have happens or the reconstructing of the experience as it should have happened.  Either way, a theme is thus ready made for him.  And the first step he takes is to see the paradox that these self-portraits are just as much the masks he wore as when the relationship was still on.  The difference, if any, is that these painted images are two inches closer to validating his true self, far removed from the ones that have been parading as a businessman, gallery owner, art promoter, actor and clown.