A window on Islamic calligraphy

 

Karachi:Islamic calligraphy is a highly winsome subject for artists, given the large scope it carries for depicting things from the attributes of The Almighty to the innumerable features of the cosmos which certainly set us all thinking and contemplating the glorious mystery of the universe.

That exactly is the case with the exhibition currently running at the Ocean Art Galleries, Clifton, featuring oil and acrylic on Canvas by Toronto-based Pakistani artist Fahim Hamid Ali on Saturday.

These semi-abstract colour compositions, twenty-seven in all, give one a deep insight into the artist’s deep-seated profound thinking whereby he contemplates the nature of the cosmos. One of the paintings is a gradual surrealistic blending of colours starting with bright amber at the top and gradually changing into a lighter shade of black and then black. There’s an unearthly touch to the work as if the artist were trying to depict the glory that is the sunset. In the middle of the painting is a Quranic verse. There are other works which depict the famous landmarks of the Islamic world like famous mosques depicted in a surrealistic, ethereal style, again with a verse from the scriptures which makes it all the more profound and appeals to the philosopher in the viewer.

What is remarkable is that Fahim, despite having lived in the secular West for fourteen years now, has sustained his interest in Islamic calligraphy and has not allowed the religious aspect of his psyche to wane.

Talking to The News, he said that when he started painting in Canada, people there made it absolutely clear to him that they didn’t want to see landscapes or other mundane subjects since they had had enough of them. They wanted something more profound and something that was reflective of Islamic psyche and culture. This, he said, was what induced him to go in for Islamic calligraphy.

Fahim, is no stranger to the western world and fully grasps the psyche and tastes of the West. Hailing actually from Karachi, he had come to be acquainted with the world childhood onwards as he travelled a lot overseas with his family, his father having been a diplomat. The exhibition runs for another week.The news.