LAHORE – Ghulam Mustafa has done wonderfully in capturing the beauty that he sees in Pakistan, by expressing it in the form of painting landscapes. His love for situations, especially within the city is fairly obvious, as the Ejaz Art Gallery displays several of his landscape series. From city roads, to narrow alleys, down to suburban scenes, Mustafa has brought Lahore to life with his oil paints and canvas.
One can only imagine an artist painting an extremely simple scene of a large hole in Multan Road. Mud houses can be seen at the fringes of the painting, in the background, while far away, two women in colourful clothes are seen in a kind of field, probably picking some crop.
The hole dominates the scene, and in fact is the focus. Mustafa has opted not to use the brightest of colours though and therefore we know that the real scene was not too different than what has been painted. Meanwhile, greenery dominates the picture of a bush whose reflection can be seen in a watery ditch. Called Shah Di Khui, this painting is also very simple, not showing any human or animal form, but only grass and two huge bushes.
But without doubt are his street scenes. Ghulam Mustafa has a tendancy to be an intricate artist and can do finer lines as well as any other realist (though his own paintings border on realist-impressionism). The street scene needs some intricacy and here Mustafa has drawn well, the powerful view of a two men crossing each other from the main road, while the viewer is looking towards them from a cobbled lane. Four people are in the whole painting and their presence has made the scene interesting to look at.
In his other paintings, Mustafa has again explored other scenarios of the city, in areas which are not too noisy or crowded, but those that are limited to quieter residential areas or small markets. But the best part of his paintings remain that he has painted the ordinary with such reverence, and with such interest, that his interest becomes infectious and is caught on by the onlooker. His scenes remind one of any ordinary one that an observer finds when looking out his or her window any regular afternoon. This magic, of an everyday life, of the beauty that Mustafa has captured on any one mundane day, is powerful.
His brush that has delved no deeper than painting the shapes of people’s faces well describe the blur of faces that one sees but never remembers sharply enough. It is the surroundings, the actions, and the settings that are strong and memorable for this artist and those cans peak through the pictures themselves.
awsome
Great……..
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