From a palette of cool, soft shades to lush greens, yellow, blues and earth tones Zulfiqar Ali Zulfi explore the beauty of his surroundings be it landscape or cityscape. While visiting Zulfi's studio in Lahore a few months back I saw his latest work he was planning to exhibit in Karachi. After going through his paintings I say Zulfi is a man of time a contemporary artist who creates often dreamlike images that reflects time and life, which is a major concern in his work.
Zulfi is very much inspired by Khalid Iqbal. He plays with time in his painting in the same style. The dawn and dusk, the noon and evening different time of the day reflects various shadows and light intensity which can be clearly seen in Zulfi's paintings. The awareness of time passing in the abstraction of the misty, foggy atmosphere is impressive.
Defined by shadows, the stately, nostalgic hues in his work show calmness some what muted but powerful vagaries of time. At first glance his paintings evoke serene and quiet moments. But there is also an overwhelming energy in the artworks. Major part of his work covers a mist series. The landscapes and cityscapes give a dream like effect yet not quite surreal. His colour choices and compositional balance are often exquisite.
The beautiful landscape features morning mist, people wrapped in shawls strolling along the road, animals peacefully grazing, the dramatic tall trees, and leafless silhouettes. Zulfi's imagery is peaceful and silent. The delicacy of light and shade create a nostalgic awareness of time passing with a misty, foggy atmosphere.
Nobody has done such a marvellous work in mist, as Zulfi has. The old Lahore in fog depicts the real picture. The first and immediate impression one gets when viewing his painting is of the beauty and delicacy, subtle yet so pertinent. The fog painted in graded haves of grey and ochre evokes a sense of mystery and romanticism.
For more than two decades now Zulfi has devoted himself wholly to the painting world. He has chosen walled city and landscape to portray life in his surrounding. The intense relationship of time and life in the beautiful ambience of nature can easily be observed in his artworks.
His paintings avoid the mannerisms of modern art and he has painted everyday life with cool objectivity. In the recent series at Ocean Art Gallery, Karachi he painted realistic landscapes of the villages around Lahore in various hours of the day especially at Dawn and Dusk, capturing the serene moments - sometimes the mist of the morning and in others bright sunlight shown through the trees completely grip viewer's attention.
It is very subtle sensitive work in oils marked by economy of means and serenity of mood. After viewing his landscapes I find his work in great detail, he describes rural life and the city of Lahore with much ease. He explores Punjab landscape where human presence plays a major role.
His paintings show huts, cattle, carts, and the villagers at work and the children at play, the dusty roads, the ponds and lonely trees - a composition that show every day life of people busy in their daily routines, all in a mist. The early morning haze associated with the cold winter mornings in Lahore and its rural surroundings has been observed with great detail and create a sensation of being there.
In his latest work the he articulates with softer shades of grays and white creating the mists and fog that fascinated him with their radiant shades and depths, disingenuous, temperate and delicate. There is a landscape by him. It shows a Punjab rural scene but with no life. There is a broad area of the sky and an equally broad plain foreground. In the middle on the horizon is a line of flat-topped mud houses and some low trees, all forming a strip.
The foliage of the trees is in a solid mass with a slight indication of light on one side. The mud house walls are featureless and flat except for the doors. The sky is without clouds. The light is subdued and so are the colours, which are predominantly grey-green. The brushwork is visible but it is not bold and prominent and swinging. It is just sufficiently vibrant to make the painting a little exciting. Subtle colour variations, within a narrow range, and judiciously controlled textural effects on all areas of the painting but especially on the trees and the foreground, add aesthetic appeal.
Not only the style but even this composition recurs because he paints the same rural scene of the Punjab as found around Lahore and brings the same eve to the selection and the painting of the scene. Of course, the work has grown more mature and the study of light effects more subtle and sensitive.
There are landscapes with more details having human or animal figures. In each painting there are only two or three trees and sometimes even one, besides a couple of flat-topped mud houses with bare walls. There is the same broad plain foreground and an almost equally broad sky with no clouds. The trees are thin, tall and with sparse foliage which is a soft purplish and yellowish green, covered in haze giving a misty appearance to the scene.
The grass in the foreground is russet brown. The scene is all typical of the hot and dusty Punjab plains, but it is carefully chosen by the artist according to his taste. In Zulfi's pastoral imagery all is peaceful and silent. The hazy and foggy atmosphere created with the delicacy of light and shade gives viewers the time at that moment frozen in the misty painting.
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