My Next Door, But I Can't See

"Komu can deploy portraiture, also, to register a cryptic aside or oblique remark on contemporary culture, through the recording of a punk hairstyle, an unsettling hint of electronic distortion; occasionally, out of the corner of the eye we see a shadow on a window-pane. Komu does not permit us direct and easy access to his subjects: in his handling, the portrait becomes a fateful reminder: we see the Other as framed by the televisual eye, for Komu's figures are often marked as though with masking tape or black identity-protection bands, or partially concealed by lattices. Signs of immunity from recognition, these semiotic interpolations double as threats of de-personalisation: the rawness of the human predicament is sometimes camouflaged by these refinements, which convey both security and the constraint in relation to Komu's figures."

(Ranjit Hoskote, Unconditional, "The Menace of Framing, the Persistence of Hope: Recent Paintings and Sculptures by Riyas Komu", exh. cat., Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai 2002)