ART FACTS: shakeel Siddiqui's majestic still life

There are a few artists who are doing still life nowadays but Shakeel Siddiqui's love affair with this genre continues from early 70s till his death on 11 January, 2018. He has chosen to paint the most unimpressive and ordinary things around us, which made his still life paintings widely popular among the art lovers. He painted his subject meticulously in microscopic detail with strong light effects and shadows, which have given a deep and realistic look to his images.
Shakeel Siddiqui was born on May 26, 1951 in Karachi. After High School, he joined Central Institute of Arts and Crafts, Karachi, but after finishing his first year there in 1970 he went to the USA to study Fine Art Painting at Art Students' League, New York and majored in portraiture under the guidance of eminent portrait painter Robert Brokeman. He returned in 1973 to help his father in his business. But later on he discovered that he is an artist only and took admission in the Institute again. He acquired a Diploma in Fine Art Painting in 1975 from the institute. Although studied abroad He was much inspired by local realist painters.
After his first solo show in 1972 at Portland, Maine, USA, he has participated in numerous group shows and solo shows at home and abroad. Since 1984, he has held positions as a lecturer of Fine Arts teaching realistic oil painting and portraiture at different art institutes around the world.
The exact representation of the object along with the elements of composition, which raises a picture to its real appearance, shows Shakeel's competence. The objects in his paintings play against each other in respect of their size, placement, colour and light thus creating a balanced composition with rhythm and flow which creates dynamics of the still life painting. Shakeel Siddiqui became famous by his painting of a small table covered with a lace table cloth and a few objects on the table in late 70s his another painting of a bookshelf was the most perfect realistic work. It was so real that one wanted to reach out for a book for real from the painting. The books in the painting were untidily arranged on the shelf, some with frayed binding and others with discoloured covers. Some books were standing straight in the shelf and one or two were lying on the side, a file cover and a register was also part of the self. The various sizes of the books and their arrangement on the self added to its realistic look.

Shakeel used the lifeless inanimate objects in his paintings as a conversation piece through which he silently speaks with the viewers. It is a conversation that everybody wanted to indulge in as everyone has known that language spoken by the paintings. The viewers have seen a daily activity which they passed through almost everyday and do not took notice of the surrounding which they now saw in Shakeel's painting and remembered the moment's warmth and feelings of the texture that was used in the painting bringing it close to reality.
The finest paintings by Shakeel Siddiqui speak volumes about the artist's skills. His collection of paintings has variety of objects painted in various styles having different themes and subjects like doors, windows, a breakfast table and a book shelf. He has added or removed certain things from the painting and replaced some objects with other objects to add variety to his paintings thus creating his signature style. Although he has worked in both colourful oil on canvas and radiant graphite on paper paintings, each has its own place.
The tangible forms were the focus of Shakeel's paintings. In some paintings there were only a single object like a window, a door, an envelope, a basket while in others a number of objects were involved thus introducing many elements of balance and proportion such as a breakfast table with breakfast items, a kitchen cabinet having kitchen accessories, a bookshelf with variety of books, a writing table spread with books, pen and a cup of tea.
He created fascinating images of newspapers and envelopes against the backdrop of old closet, an old rusted door, a cup of tea on a window waiting to be drink, a kitchen cabinet full of various colours and sizes bottles of different edibles. These objects and forms offered a glance at life with glimpses of the familiar, domestic and soothing moments of pleasure and sadness that might have occur in the our life.
[email protected]