An exhibition by Dr. Syed Ali Wasif.

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Stark revealing imagery swathed in a riot of colour enacts the agony and ecstasy of Tharri existence in Syed Ali Wasif’s desert odyssey on show at Citi Art Gallery.

Painting the grim realities of Thar is by now a clichéd theme albeit a necessary one, perhaps as the regions fate still languishes on the back burner. This exhibition also gains certitude on account of the artists own deep empathy for the oppressed and the tormented.

A practicing psychiatrist, Wasif has dedicated his art to the portrayal of the mentally disturbed, the down trodden, humiliated and neglected segment of society. His numerous exhibitions from as far back as 1990 till recent times, like the ‘Diary of a psychiatrist’, ‘Ashes from Shantinager’, ‘Organised violence’, ‘Faces of death’, ‘Stress’, ‘Anatomy of torture’ etc. are stirring testimonials of his compassion for and deep involvement with forgotten humanity.

Almost a visual prognosis of his doctoral analysis, his art has centralised mainly on the traumatised psyche of his subjects. An austere, sparse palette of hard-hitting hues and distorted, haunting imagery with recourse to psychedelic exaggeration of body limbs, acute angular perspective, undulating vortex like contouring, symbolic use of skulls, prison cells, and vandalised locales enabled him to create visions of human despair and horror now so synonymous with his work.

Eventually a surfeit of what he terms ‘politics of stress’ took it toll. The artist now feels “the present reality is too ugly to handle,” and having “drifted to the wilderness” he is seeking solace in a world “where time has frozen.” The saga of Thar, unchanged for centuries still relates, literally, to the ‘dust to dust’ regimen of existence. Away from the madding crowd and city culture of cold, impersonal urbanisation, his refuge in the soulful enveloping vastness of “the world’s seventh largest desert,” Thar, has brought colour to his canvases and rhythm and harmony to his compositions.

A deliberate shift from the death row gloom of damnation peculiar to his earlier work the new paintings have the pulse and throb of the life of simple folks even though they too are subjects of anguish and distress. Whilst the work is figurative it is also abstracted, and it is this abstraction that generates discomfort. The contorted faces and gyrating lines generate energy that opposes the calmness of a horizontal line we tend to associate with a sense of order and harmony.

Woven around the romance of fable and legend and the chains of traditional ritual and sacrament, Wasif paints intense and touching images of the eternal human condition. Through a simple recount of the life and fate of the legendry Marvi he has been able to chronicle the primary emotive experiences of life like love, honour and fidelity at one side of the pendulum and lust, hate, deceit and betrayal at the other. With humour, with pain, and with love for mankind, the paintings, on a larger scale narrate the issues confronting the entire region through this focus on an individual community.

The pictorial documentation refers to primitivism prevalent in the wasteland where literacy and basic civic amenities like housing, health, and sanitation are still governmental promises yet to be fulfilled. On a more specific note he points a finger at the ridiculously barbaric rituals like karo kari and other acts associated with honour killing that have elicited chilling works like ‘Marvi Jo Kho’ and ‘Kharri neem ke neeche akeele.’

Woven around the romance of fable and legend and the chains of traditional ritual and sacrament, Syed Ali Wasif paints intense and touching images of the eternal human condition

Aesthetically the compositions painted in an obviously ‘Sadequinesque’ manner draw mixed reactions. With contemporary art moving in radically new directions, to many this art is ‘passé’ even kitschy but there is still an audience that relates to established stylisations of this nature and if the works smack of the masters mannerism then it is considered an added attraction. A run through Wasif’s repertoire reveals his ability to modulate in order to create expressive art. If his intention is only to project the distressed and the anguished then he has a winning formula but if he is desirous of emerging as an artist of significance then he needs to work towards a pronounced signature style, the potential for which is there.

Unlike his previous works, in this show there is a deliberate recourse to Sadequain’s vocabulary of forms, human and otherwise. He makes effective use of thorny cacti imagery to evoke the Tharri desertscape. But his figurative distortions are amateurish and there is a need to improve considerably in order to accord his protagonists a mature impact worthy presence.

Currently he is passing muster. Icons of Sindhi identity like the Ralli and Ajrak patterning seem to be forced into the compositions and also need to be incorporated with greater subtlety. His use of vibrant and sombre colouration as an emotive agent however is evocative.

The artist’s confession that “I have pushed myself away from the reality into a more abstract and surrealistic world” brings him closer to his artistic endeavour as an expressive medium. This is further corroborated in his statement in which he declares, “I have started walking barefooted in the footsteps of my mentor Sadequain, on the hot dry sand of the desert to explore the new meaning of life and existence.” He seems to be rediscovering life in the desert where “even the cactus is blooming indicating vitality and survival.”

Viewed in unison the exhibition strikes a sympathetic chord because like the artist the populace in general is also experiencing profound societal changes and philosophical chaos as all the old unsinkable certitudes seem to be going the way of the Titanic. The introverted, alienated psychology of modernism has played havoc with humanistic ideals and relationships. In primitive locales like Thar, communion with nature and the great unknown is still a stabilising influence on life.

The exhibition will continue till December 19, 2007. This review by Salwat Ali appeared in Dawn.