Ahmad Zakii explores deep philosophical questions about the self, existence, desires, relationships and engagements in his figures and still lifes. His vegetables-and-fruits combo was done during the early phase of his art career when he switched from advertising. Some see them as metaphors of exotica, but he is more concerned with the aesthetic elements, of creating subtle tensions through awkward placements of objects, but always with a meditative veneer of quiet rhythms. The backdrop is dark and mysterious, which partly reveals the artist’s love of objects of antiquity.