Captivating the viewers by their rich colour palette and bold compositions the paintings by Salman Farooqi at Art Citi Gallery, Karachi exuded refreshing energy. He combined physical and mental energy with a wholehearted and joyous approach to situations and activities.
His works showed innovation as he skilfully handled colours and figures in his paintings. His conceptual paintings were a fusion of reality and his vivid imagination. The boats, river, sun and buildings representing a real life picture in an asymmetrical manner. The real objects morphed into fictional entities like the amorphous sun, shadowy boats and nebulous buildings in his painting thus showing Salaman's own style of seeing things. In fact his imagination marked the outline of the real figures and he simply distorted them on the canvas.
Pleasingly distinct and exciting Salman's paintings restore energy and vitality of people who view his artworks. He seemed to be much inspired by the sea and the boats sailing and anchoring at the harbour. The title of his solo exhibition "Dhows of Karachi" also reflected his inspiration.
The activities of people and nature at the sea were well captured by him in his paintings. Continuing his signature style Salman painted large canvases in great detail. The background portrayed many different landscapes in various paintings. In some paintings buildings and wires accompanied the anchoring boats while in others far away mountains and a big sun filled the background.
His much excited and sprightly canvases had yellow colour, which gave a vivacious look to his paintings. The sparkling yellow reflected light in brilliant glittering flashes. The yellow colour reflected in crystalline sea water along with big yellow sun created a refreshing ambiance of the paintings.
After finishing his painting based on reality he slightly distorted forms - a unique mode of expression - by using squares thus giving his realistic work a cubic touch. His artistic abilities become more evident in the inventiveness and impressions he created thus able to achieve in creating his own specific style.
The boats and buildings were the most conspicuous feature of his paintings which were made more visible by using soft and bold colours. The soothing and cooling effects of his paintings came from the transparent colours he used. Various tones of yellow, blue and red made his works visually serene and peaceful.
Being a spontaneous artist he never planned a painting. As he stands in front of a canvas his thoughts and imagination started producing forms and structures on the canvas and he painted in the flow of those ideas and inspirations.
He inserted and excluded objects and elements from his paintings maintaining an unusual attraction to his works like the windows of the houses, the sun in the sky, hanging clothes on washing lines, electric wires and the boats in the sea. Thus he changed the appearance of the surrounding creating a new look to his paintings. The distorted sun and cubic shadows are invariant in his paintings. Whether he painted architectural structures or the boats harbouring at the shore the sun and shadows constantly joins. This provided a rhythm to his paintings which seemed interrelated and connected to each other.
Devoid of life his paintings has only objects, elements and structures and these were enough to support his basic subject presenting his thoughts and suggestions hidden in layers of colours, cubes and shadows.
Through luminous colour palette and well balanced compositions he skilfully created aesthetic paintings. With the blend of realism and modernism he harmonises his paintings with layers of colours, symbolic cubic forms and extended [email protected]
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