here is no doubt that Mughees Riaz is a brilliant painter; but is he an intelligent artist too? His recently concluded solo exhibition offers some clues, perhaps even answers.

The exhibition, titled Dil Durya: 25 Years of Creative Excellence, was held from May 25 to June 12 at the Ejaz Art Gallery, Lahore. Curated by Rahat Naveed Masud and Amna I Patudi, the solo show featured paintings produced between 2023 and 2025, rather than spanning 25 years of creative output.

This puzzle begins to resolve itself when one examines the content of each canvas. Despite the fact that none of the works is dated earlier than 2023, their subject matter, style, characters and atmosphere echo the painter’s earlier work. Demonstrating his remarkable skill, Riaz has remained committed to a particular kind of imagery since completing his BFA at the Department of Fine Arts, University of the Punjab, in 1997.

It is likely that Riaz intended the show to be seen not as a typical exhibition, but as the retrospective of someone who has painted for a quarter of a century. However, instead of gathering existing work from collectors, patrons or institutions - the usual approach for curating such a project - Riaz chose to recreate the canvases. These do not exactly replicate earlier compositions, but are deeply connected to them.

As a result, many viewers were struck by a sense of déjà vu: the scenes of the Ravi river; vast skies; crows perched on bamboos, wooden poles, or buffaloes; a series of buffalo heads; a cat, a dog or a chair in an empty landscape; a solitary tree with a broken pitcher; and male and female figures depicted in varying roles, costumes and settings.

The retrospective angle was reinforced through other inventive touches. In one section of the gallery, the artist’s used-up paint tubes and his dried, discarded brushes were arranged in a circular formation, encased under a glass top on a white plinth, evoking the feel of a museum piece: historic, and therefore valuable. Another part of the exhibition showcased objects linked to the artist’s father and ancestors, highlighting their contributions to the fields of art and design.

Mughees Riaz’s father, Mehmood Khalid Riaz, graduated in graphic design from the National College of Arts and designed book jackets for Ferozsons Publishers. His mother’s maternal uncle, Noor Ahmad Azad, joined the Mayo School of Art in 1942, created the first portraits of Quaid-i-Azam, and produced numerous Pakistani film posters, some of which were displayed on the gallery wall. His grandfather’s cousin, Mohammad Latif, designed Pakistan’s first postage stamp.

This homage to his family and their contributions is both commendable and impressive. Yet one is left wondering about the reason, need and urgency to include this historical material in the exhibition of an artist who has not yet put down his brush. Its inclusion suggests that the artist may have reached a point of self-satiation, where the repetition of earlier methods, subjects and motifs signals a sense of arrival, a final destination and personal success.

Referring to one’s past imagery, techniques and strategies is not unusual in art. In fact, it often leads to the invention of something new and surprising, both for the artist and the viewer. Every exhibition tends to carry traces of earlier work, though these usually surface unconsciously, unintentionally and without deliberate awareness. Even when one attempts to create something entirely new, the past remains present, a connection that may only become evident years later, or through an outsider’s observation.

Beyond the socio-political reading, the paintings, in their naturalism, quiet authority and confident brushwork, leave a strong impression.

When a curator selects work from various stages of an artist’s career, even from their private collection, the result is often a more authentic account of a long, difficult, meandering (and at times linear) journey. In Mughees Riaz’s case, however, it seems the artist chose a more direct path: to forge a legacy within the span of two years, as though constructing a historic monument with freshly fired bricks.

That said, some of these newly created canvases reveal Riaz’s mastery of his craft, particularly his ability to capture the hushed atmosphere of an evening by the river. The textures of boat planks, cow hides and buffalo coats are rendered with exceptional skill. In terms of technical ability, whether drawing in charcoal or painting in oil, Riaz appears unmatched. A simple scene or an ordinary motif becomes vivid, resonant and alive. Yet, when he ventures into more elaborate narratives, layered ideas or reflections on the present moment, the results often feel like uneven flights of fancy.

The selection of forcefully constructed narratives veers into cliché. Take, for instance, the Pyar Kahani series, in which a muscular man, dressed only in a white cloth around his waist, holds a red rose, while a young woman in a black burqa and hijab offers him an apple. The scene, an allusion to Adam and Eve, plays out beneath dark clouds looming over grey waters. Another canvas in the series features a bearded man in white robes carrying a pomegranate.

Echoing this mood is a diptych: in one painting, a woman in black holds a dark cockerel (Caught 1); in the other, a bearded man in white clutches the same bird (Caught 2).

These attempts to evoke the uncanny within an otherwise realistic visual language seem rooted in a fetish for the fantastical, perhaps an unconscious echo of the cinema posters once designed by his great-uncle. A girl sprawled across a vast terrain (Sleeping Woman), or a boy posing in a studio with a scarlet tapestry draped around his thighs while grasping a clay pot (Man with Clay Pot series), hint at symbolic depth. The boy’s head bowed, eyes closed, face pressed to the earthenware may suggest deeper meanings, but within the context of the show, the image feels oddly placed.

Similarly incongruous is a large canvas titled Flying Buffalo, in which the familiar, heavy animal is depicted like a racehorse, soaring through the sky as though it were an aeroplane. A sky which, to borrow a phrase from Paul Auster, “brought only weather.”

On the other hand, when the painter restrains his flights of imagination and focuses on immediate reality, his work offers far more to reflect on, visualise and connect with. Two examples stand out in particular.

His Portraits of Buffalos is a series of 12 canvases, close-up heads of buffaloes (with slight variations in horns, snouts, skin and colour), arranged in two groups facing one another. The artist’s formal decision to paint 24-carat gold in the background of each animal appears to be an attempt to elevate a creature not even deemed worthy of religious sacrifice, as a means of identification, perhaps even reverence.

This theme is revisited in the Kirdar series, though with changing characters. Women in black, their heads covered, share the pictorial space with buffaloes, alongside a bearded man in a white kurta. The implication may be a commentary on the ways in which both women and buffaloes are exploited in society, regarded as property, confined to the domestic sphere and silenced.

Beyond the socio-political reading, the paintings, in their naturalism, quiet authority and confident brushwork, leave a strong impression. They also suggest, perhaps, another future leap for Mughees Riaz: one that is grounded, open-ended and full of potential.

The writer is a visual artist, an art critic, a curator and a professor at the School of Visual Arts and Design, Beaconhouse National University, Lahore. He can be contacted on quddusmirza@gmail.com.