At first glance, the 31 oil-on-canvas paintings of Lahore-based artist, Zulfiqar Ali Zulfi, look like a cache of photography because his landscape and cityscape are more than an imitation of what he sees around him. Tanzara Gallery on Thursday opened its doors for an exquisite painting exhibition of Zulfi’s works where his maturity shines through his palette and thought process on the canvas. An element of spirituality germinates from all the four seasons he exploits masterly in his work.
He captures the presence of gentle wind, and light pouring through mist, and at times playing with orangish winter sun with his brush. His outcome in the form of landscapes and cityscapes address in multiple directions. He also gives a lot of breathing space to the viewer by painting sky in his landscapes.
The sky also is an indicator of time and season. At times it is all misty and on some canvases it is festooned with colours subtly merging into each other. This assimilation announces the time element and the viewer can guess that it is dawn or dusk. Vast mustard and hay fields are other spectacular landscapes which cannot be overlooked by the viewer. It is strange that, except in one landscape, animal life is rare in his landscape, there are no birds, no animals, no people; not even the signs of today’s technology like electric poles, wires etc.
This imaging of nature takes the mind back to hundred years ago when life was pure and simple. Students of English literature find similarities between Thomas Hardy’s landscapes in his novel Tess of the D’Urberville when he writes about the drive of the milkman on a horse driven cart at dawn when the town is asleep and the rising sun is not showing due to the heavy mist. Zulfi’s cityscapes present a similar scenario. As compared to the landscapes, his cityscapes are full of all the elements which indicate the presence of life.
Zulfi experimented with mist three years ago and was fascinated by its romance. Enfolded in mist even the ugly appeals to the aesthetics of the artist and consequently to the viewer as well. But what Zulfi paints are scenes from the Punjab, especially Dera Ghazi Khan which is still alive in the deep down recesses of his unconscious. He was born and had his early education at Dera Ghazi Khan and then left the town at a tender age.
Friendly and a keen observer by nature, Zulfi noticed romance in mist and then he found soft light when the mist was washed away by winter rain. He felt the beauty of it and started painting the light. These were progressions on his canvas not by design but by a natural process.
Explaining this process, Zulfi says that it is like meeting new people who leave their impressions on you in the passage of life. Some impressions you imbibe and some are forgotten with the passing time. Similar is the case with the journey of my painting; I do not know which turn it will take in future. But I am ready to take challenges in painting, the Lahore based artist said.
Going down in his memory lane, Zulfi remembers her mother as a perfectionist. She was rich in aesthetics. Whatever she did was the best. He recalls and says that perhaps I got the painter’s genes from her. It was just a coincidence that his brothers and sisters were good at drawing and handwriting. His eldest brother was a signboard painter. Zulfi picked up palette sensibility by watching him.
Zulfi has all the support from his wife Muniza who runs a textile business with outlets at Lahore and Karachi. She is his best critic. Muniza was his student when he was teaching art at Alhamra. Zufi says that romance entered his landscape after his marriage with Muniza. His children are studying at Atchison College and the family lives happily.
According to Marjorie Husain, “Zulfiqar Ali Zulfi is a painter of the landscape genre with two decades of painting to his credit. In Zulfi’s paintings it appears we are all observers. Often standing on the threshold of light, almost grisaille in his approach to the media, he is a master of chiaroscuro, mornings are cloaked with mist, the tall trees dramatic, leafless silhouettes.”
Noshi Qadir, the gallery’s owner while talking to Pakistan Today said Zulfi is a realist, but his paintings, be they landscapes or cityscapes are more than an imitation of what is seen. He has the magic of capturing the essence of the vignette that he replicates on canvas.
Beyond realism, said Noshi, the artist understands his subject matter well – be it a rustic scene, or an urban setting, misty horizons, or cattle out in the open fields, the artist renders such images with amazing dexterity. She said Zulfi’s imagery is idyllic and delightful; he is a master of capturing seasons and times of day. In his landscapes one actually fees the breeze and smells the grass, the foggy winter morning scenes are truly cold and the sunny landscapes warm and brilliant. The artist is the recipient of the presidential Pride of Performance Award. He has several solo and group shows to his credit and his paintings are in major collections home and abroad, Noshi said. This exhibition will continue at Tanzara Gallery (House No. 14, Street No. 12, F-7/2) till 26 November.
