“I believe that every person, no matter how well you think you know them, is in essence a mystery to anyone but themselves.”
Dhiradj Ramsamoedj graduated from the Nola Hatterman Art Academy in 2004. He also successfully completed his teachers’ education and currently teaches art at a secondary school in Paramaribo, Suriname.
As a beginning artist he preferred working with oil on canvas and a palette knife as his tool, but now he also paints in acrylics, which he applies with a brush. Ordinary Surinamese people, their daily circumstances and struggles, as well as memories from his past and the mysterious nature of man, are important themes in his work. His works are also increasingly becoming critical commentaries on controversial social and political issues affecting Surinamese society today. He also creates three-dimensional art, and his textile sculptures made from hundreds of pieces of culturally inspired cloth, have become quite popular.
In 2009 he spent three months at the ‘Gerrit Rietveld Academie’ in Amsterdam as guest lecturer. Dhiradj’s work has been shown in exhibitions in Suriname, the Netherlands, the USA, Trinidad and Tobago and Aruba. Dhiradj has been an artist-in-residence in Trinidad and Tobago in 2011, and in Aruba in 2013.
In 2016 Dhiradj also spent 2 months in France as an artist-in-residence at the ‘Cité des arts internationale’ in Paris. In 2019 the artist had a large solo exhibition at Readytex Art Gallery in which he displayed a surprising new collection of mixed media paintings and sculptures.