Rural prospects and changing moods of nature

LAHORE
ZULFIQAR Zulfi, a renowned artist and a great supporter of fine & visual and performing arts, is all set to open up his own art gallery ‘Zulfi’s Art Gallery in the provincial metropolis in April’s last week.
According to Mian Ejaz-ul-Hassan, one of the towering figures in the world of Pakistani art, a teacher, an art critic and an intellectual par excellence, Zulfi is a multifaceted person; amiable, amusing and agreeable. As an artist, he is creative and bold. His works demonstrates considerable skill in rendering rural prospects and expressing changing moods of nature. His canvases that address the Lahore city reveal a keen interest in old structures with their calloused walls, brickwork patterns, and facades embellished with carved windows and balconies. In his more recent paintings dilate upon streets scenes. In a series of paintings, the city is immersed in silver and gray winter mist, where subtle effects are achieved by cautiously defining essential forms.
The overall mood of these works is rather pensive; opposed to contrasts of bright and deep shadows that bring into dramatic relief forms and surface textures that for instance create an unusual tension in works of Ghulam Mustafa. Zulfi’s street scenes are sedate, inviting the viewer eye to rest as opposed to being stimulated to react. Aijaz Anwar’s street scenes are crowded with everyday life; surface details of brick and wooden structures are identified and patiently picked. I love artists who do not consciously manufacture ‘high art’; whatever is that? Zulfi’s canvases have introduced a fresh manner of tackling the urban environment. His landscapes recurrently employ sunlight, which rather romantically traces the contour of his trees, licking wild grasses and receding country tracks, leading the eye to the distant horizon.
Zulfi is a man of many parts. Establishment of an art gallery at Lahore is an endeavour in a new direction.
A working artist managing a gallery should lend a new dimension to the role of a gallery as opposed to most of them thriving in the city that are essentially commercial entities. However, I am curious what lies ahead of him as a painter.