Khalil Chistee's sculptures showed his concerns about human being's understanding of mankind. He wanted people to get rid of their usual thinking pattern and think creatively that will slowly and gradually develop creative minds that will bring change in society as fresh ideas can bring little by little freshness to people's lives.
Khalil used plastic trash bags as his principle medium of expression in his current series of work exhibited at Sanat Gallery, Karachi. This humble material reflects the pure people defying traditional materials like bronze, ceramics or steel. He can express his raw emotions easily and comfortably in any suitable material but this time he has chosen plastic trash bags for the purpose.
His sculptures gave gloomy picture of our society - joyless, dull and depressing but after a close look one saw hope of promising future arising from these sombre and dismal forms. The silence of his sculptures speaks loudly; the silence became words and conveyed their message clearly through their pain and anguish.
The unusual medium which seemed like a smooth material from distance when approached revealed humanity through wasteful material. Now-a-days when you see around life became a waste. Around the world poverty and war has taken away humanity from human beings and man started to threaten mankind.
The sculpture representations of men, women and children were distinctive and inimitable. He created fragile and vulnerable figures from a shapeless and formless material giving it life in the shape of sculptures showing emotions and feelings. Being an amorphous material plastic bags don't give Khalil convenience of replicating his sculptures as other sculptors do while using material such as marble, wood, steel and clay. Thus each sculpture is one of a kind. The colour, light and dimension gave different characteristics to his characters.
The face of the figures also showed affections, emotions and sentiments hence his sculptures were full of life but some pieces have abstract facial features as if the artist wanted to hide the identity of the figure deliberately.
The exhibition titled "Detritus from Exploded Stars" depicts figures connected to each other with relationships and humanity. The intangible forms talked about tangible things, the issues related to common people while living daily lives. Every sculpture had incomplete outline of a human being - man, woman or a child presenting an idea that life is fading like a trash bag.
He mainly used white trash bags reflecting the soul or spirit of the people taken shape in his sculptures. A few of his works were in blue or red colours portraying the subject he wanted to address through that piece of sculpture.
The sculpture titled "Voice in the Head" made from White and blue trash bags and grocery bags present brilliantly the thoughts in everybody's mind about life and what life offers to him/her. The works titled "Lesson Never Learned" and "Sweet Prison" showed a father and his son portraying a life in paucity which was lived by a father and he saw his son's future as the same as his own. Showing no change is life and quality of life lived generation after generation.
The titles of his sculptures say it all "One after Another", "Recycled Dervish" and "Truly Yours". His creations were moulds of life made from lifeless material.[email protected]
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