Tikal

Solo art exhibition in Artseni Gallery located in Starhill Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. From July 22 until August 12. Opening with Guest of Honor His Excellency Alain du Boispean Ambassador of France in Malaysia and José Luís Mazón, Chargé of Mexico Embassy in Malaysia.

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Using ancient carvings to create abstract hieroglyphics, Tikal renews a forgotten world full of wonders. His work combines traditional materials with printing techniques and digital media processes. He invites you to consider Modernity through the eyes of Nature. “Our world deals with mass media and globalised fashion and Art should wash away your spirit from the pollution of everyday life.”


Exhibition Concept

"I saw the soul of the Mayans in their stone carvings then I started painting to set their spirit free. My goal is to crystallize authentic emotions into visual understanding. Our world deals with mass media and globalised fashion and Art should wash away your spirit from the pollution of everyday life. Negative vibes can destroy your soul. My Art reminds you that you have one." 

December 21st 2012.
According to the Mayan Calendar, at this point of our time, a cycle of 5200 years will finish. Is this the end of the world or a starting point for a new era? In Ancient America, Life, Death, Time and Cosmos were differently understood. Nature was worshipped as well as Food, Clothing and Shelter. Cosmology shows us the Tree as a sacred symbol of Life and TRANSCENDANCY. Each part of it has its very own meaning. The trunk represents our world and the branches lead to the celestial realm. Although the roots plunge into the underworld of mighty gods, Death was not considered as a negative end but as a struggle stage before a cosmic rebirth. The color green was associated with eternal renewal. Highly appreciated, green stones (like jade in Asia) were among the most beautiful valuables because they represented natural Equilibrium and Equality.
During the 16th century, most of the Mayan books were burnt by the Inquisition and as a matter of fact, Native Indian Wisdom and Knowledge was discarded. Love, Peace and Happiness originally come from Mother Earth and the Native Indian’s strong connection with Nature is still among us.
The Art of Tikal is essentially based on Mayan patterns but deals with a contemporary visual language. Using antique carvings to develop abstract hieroglyphics, he renews a world full of wonders and mysteries. His work combines traditional materials and printing techniques, proposing you to review Modern Art through the eyes of Nature. Combining both painting textures and digital media processes, he invites us to discover Native Indian spirituality.



Quotations

"Or I guess the grass is itself a child? The produced babe of the vegetation.
Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic?
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same."
Walt Whitman in Leaves of Grass, Book III

"The defining function of the artist is to cherish consciousness"
Max Eastman

"Themost beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true
art and all science."
Albert Einstein

Ancient patterns. My own material. Mythology and archeology researches. Everything my eyes can grab through Nature, Books and my own mind. Knowledge of the spiritual world, the History, the legends. Beauty is every where, some objects and materils fascinate me, they make me develop my own designs.

The feathered serpent is the king-god of all civilization. He brings art and music, love poetry and flowers. In Mayan culture he is known as Kuculcán, but the animal is also associated to the spiritual world, to prophetic and ecstatic visions as a Vision Serpent. The figure of the snake in Mesoamerican arts could be presented as a reminiscence, a equivalent of the asiatic dragon.
Each of my works has a specific meaning. I focus on the reemergence of a world where science is a relegion of our origins.
During the 16th century while (re)discovering Americas, spanish Inquisition burnt all the sacred manuscript of the indians. Today our knoledge is about to quetion the spiritual and cosmic realm.

Ancient Maya were great scientists, astronoms, mathematicians. They use to calculate eclipses, moon phases and planet movements very precisely. They posessed a very deep knowledge of the time. Rising sun was associated to a wonderful bird, Itzamana, and night time to a crouching jaguar, magnificent and mighty god of the underworld. Maya elite made sacrifices to feed with blood (the sacred substance of life) the almighty earth and sun, in order to maintain the equilibrium of our solar system.

According to their datation system, Maya astronoms calculated that our era (the fourth sun or fourth creation) will end in the 21 of december 2012. This civilization fascinates many people, like Chinese, Babylonian, Egyptian, Hindu, Phoenician because of its advanced knowledge of huge time cycles. Some Authors like Ignatius L. Donnely said Maya people were an Atlantis colony, who settled in Mesoamerica after the last global flood. What can be said for sure is what scholars and modern science taught us: a long time ago, when Bering strait was frozen, people from Asia (Mongols) cross the ice and migrate to populate America. That's why some native Indians look like Asians.

My Investment of Mesoamerican art and most generally of Indian tradition is full of respect and understanding. I pay homage to it with through my art. I want to modernize an heritage to rebirth concepts and revive knowledge from our past. I try to give to people a different feeling about what we commonly underestimate like sheer nature wellbeing and respect. I also want them to think about what we usually fear or neglect like our place in the cosmic realm, blood and death, war and human sacrifices. Some of these themes might appear scary but aren't they also part of our daily lives?

God bless you, time is art, TikaL.

Oil, inks, fire... Photography and Digital printing techniques. Silk screen printing.

Tikal Dumas was born in the end of the Seventies in Colombia from French parents. As a child, he's been living in Brazil before joining France in 1987. From this Latin-American period, he kept an artistic attraction for the West-Indian cultures.

He completed Art studies in Paris at Sorbonne University and obtained a Master degree with honors in Visual Arts. His artistic research concentrates on Art and the esthetics of the Maya civilization. He was named after TIKAL, one of the principal Cites of the Classic Period, (jungle of Petén, Guatemala.) He now lives in Singapore, where he continues his artistic exploration of this fascinating civilization.