Entering the world of a whole new blue

Artist Komail Aijazuddin’s exhibition ‘Out of The Blue’ reflects his

love for classicism and Greece

On entering the Canvas Gallery, the exhibit ‘Out of The Blue’ might hint at work which takes the visitor by surprise, and the dominance of colour blue in all paintings, save three, does the job perfectly so. 

The painting series by artist Komail Aijazuddin which opened at Canvas Gallery last week does not only explore the Classical approach, rather it also incorporates the use of different symbols.

Speaking about classicism in his work, Aijazuddin explained that his subsequent work had been influenced by the Greats, except the reflection of those ideas in this series was the outcome of his visit to Greece last year: “During my time there I began seeing Greece as the inception site of what we believe to be the beginning of Western civilisation, but also as a country that today is a locational gateway to Europe for the influx of refugees from the East.”

Given that he was keenly interested in Islamic art since the start with regards to figurative tradition, this work also has traces of initial journey.

“I like to experiment with the kinds of visual vocabulary that can describe Islam and Pakistan in particular, so both the historical and contemporary significant of Greece became a profound place of departure for my work,” he added.

However it is not every day that you see an exhibit led by a singular colour, which in his work, is blue, a darker shade central paving the way.

Aijazuddin explained the notion behind this and related it to the visual description of the inspiration: “I haven’t seen blue being quite as blue anywhere else in the world, and the colour became an obvious access point, as you will see in most of the pieces,” he added.

 “I have borrowed the language of Greek religious icons for the Silent Icons against the silver backgrounds, as well as emphasised on the idea of the ideal, classical statuary in my approach to most of the figures in the show.”

Depicting four seasons, the artist has used the technique of mosaic to draw them apart, which too goes back to classicism.

“The trees paintings were inspired by the technique of mosaic tiles that are the main decorative element in Ancient Grecian sites. A collection of discreet but related color marks were how I thought that technique could be transferred onto canvas,” he pointed out.

Two pieces, ‘Jinnah with Shadow’ and ‘Jinnah with Thorns’ seem to be quite captivating because thorns appear to be symbolic enough to be repeated in other pieces as well. Aijazuddin, who is based in Lahore and New York, filled in that it also considered abstract concepts like civilisational divides.

“I began considering my own Pakistani relationship to civilizational identity, which is when I began making the portraits of Jinnah. I was always interested in the fact that most of our images of the founding father were from his last years, when his health was failing and his body wraith-like. The fact that the image of the Quaid we venerate was of man in a dying body always struck me,” he explained.

Moving on to the repetition of ‘thorns’, he said it had been a long-standing theme and was used for immediate references to delicacy, protection, religious iconography and their embodiment of beauty and danger.

The exhibition concludes on March 9.