Moazzam Ali is one of our celebrated master watercolour artists. An alumnus of the Karachi School of Arts (KSA) he completed his graduation in Fine Arts in 1980 securing First Class First Position and a gold medal in the province of Sindh. Moazzam Ali is awarded with Sitara-e-Imtiaz this year, which is the third highest honour and civilian award of Pakistan. This award added another feather in his cap as a few years ago he was appreciated internationally in 2007 when he was crowned the title of 'Master of Watercolour' by the Whitney Museum New York and given an International Award for introducing new innovations to watercolour painting.
Moazzam is a contemporary artist known for his contributions in the art locally and internationally. His mastery of the watercolour medium and his dexterity in handling the technique draws attention of art lovers world-wide. His painting demonstrations and references are used by art universities, academies and art teachings all around the world.
Some of the international museums and galleries have his paintings for permanent display to create awareness among the upcoming artists about the historical value of our traditional art and educate the young generation about the masterly techniques of visual arts. A book has also been written by Dr Mussarrat Hassan, a PhD professor at Lahore College of Arts, titled 'Moazzam Ali'. The book comprises artist's life journey in art and consists of more than 175 spectacular painting plates from his lifetime works.
He is a painter who created his own unique, distinctive painting style influenced by the Thar Desert. He successfully presents relationship between culture and life experiences. The series of figures show sequences echoing stories. His paintings reflect his artistic expressions in a variety of emotions, representations and themes that are explored during the lifetime of a woman. His rendering of figures is different as he mainly portrayed the feminine form using shades of bright colours against dull background to glamorise the simplicity of human anatomy against a colourless life in Thar.
His paintings reflect traditional features and attractive dresses of Thari women, which is thousands of year's old unique heritage of Indus Civilisation. A Thari woman with a pitcher is one of his signature works. His paintings reveal poetical renditions of women images focusing on local women's daily life in vibrant hues. While going through his paintings over the period of time I observed that Moazzam Ali speaks through the eyes of women he paints. The flat face women without any expressions gaze at the viewer as if trying to say something. These women speaks another language - a language of silence which is being heard loudly by the viewers around the globe wherever the paintings were exhibited. The almond eyes are always thinking. These thoughts are of past, present and future thus she has a keen eye on every aspect of life but do not express her thoughts openly. Moazzam brings out what is in the heart of these women as they have confined themselves inside unseen boundaries and he help them cross those boundaries; silently narrating their stories of the past and present through paintings hoping for better future ahead.
Moazzam excelled in the medium of watercolour painting and created a bond with the heritage in his own different way. He visited different parts of Sindh like Thatta, Makli and Chawkandi from where he also got his inspiration. The Indus valley is a civilisation that is more than five thousand years old. It is among the few oldest civilisations in the world. The statues dug up from the ruins of Mohenjo Daro shows the women of that bygone era wore bangles that covered their full arms and silver jewellery same as Thari women of today wear.
The drapery and jewels in his paintings are colourful have various bright colours like orange, yellow, chrome yellow, golden, bright red just like the drapery and jewels found in Thar. By using all these vibrant colours he gives a realistic touch to his paintings. But he often leaves half the picture plain unpainted adding the feeling of freedom and spontaneity. Thousands of years have passed by and still their history is alive making it one of the strongest civilisations in the world making people around the world keen and inspired many like Moazzam Ali.
'Women of Thar' is a constant theme, which persists throughout his painting career. He has produced a number of paintings on this theme but he also ventured on other women subjects and sometimes do landscapes paintings to take a break. His paintings are unique in technique and treatment as they are highly expressionistic and impressionistic with new forms of textures invented and introduced by him. He has chosen the transparent watercolour technique for his expressions, and uses other elements such as textures, lines, shapes and light to maintain the transparency of the medium. His compositions show vividness, rhythm, veracity and design of its own.
Watercolour medium is thought to be a very hard and difficult medium having no flexibility but Moazzam Ali proved otherwise. He achieved this by constant experimentation and created a unique technique of handling the colours and controlling the tones which is an exceptional skill. He has explored many avenues in discovering the various possibilities of watercolour painting. His dexterity, freedom and the expertise in the usage of this medium are remarkable.
In his three and a half decade career, Moazzam Ali developed his expertise in this field by travelling around the world to study and research including New York, Paris, London, Toronto, Dubai etc. He has always considered watercolour as a very strong medium and he acquired greater knowledge of the medium by watching videos, reading books and articles. And to acquire greater practical knowledge of the medium he attended workshops and visited museums and galleries where he keenly observed the original works and studied the great masters.
While going through the works of artists like Andrew Wyeth, Henry Casselli, Alex Powers, and Charles Reid from USA and Yau from Canada he realised how vast and interesting watercolour really is. Among all he got much inspired by the works of Andrew Wyeth. He participated in many group exhibitions other than 14 solo exhibitions to his credit at different galleries throughout the world focusing on the beauty of the Indus Valley civilisation thus highlighting the civilisation's significance and spreading knowledge about the centuries old civilisation at the national and international level.
His paintings also has an honour to be commissioned and collected by President's House, Prime Minister's House, Governor's House, embassies, consulates, banks, five star hotels, museums and art galleries.
Moazzam has also served at several prominent positions during the course of his career and provided his services as a principal of two art colleges. He also held the position of art director in leading advertising agencies. From making portraits with charcoal as a kid to painting colourful paintings as a master watercolour painter Moazzam Ali now reached a point where he has achieved what a professional artist wants in his profession now is the time to preserve his works and techniques.
[email protected]
Comments
Comments are closed.