Nomad Art Gallery exhibits Arif Khan’s calligraphy

An art exhibition entitled ‘Mystic Rituals’ and displaying the calligraphy of Arif Khan is starting at the Nomad Art Gallery, Saidpur Village today (Tuesday).

Arif has the command over the classical styles of khatt-e-kufi, meqdaat, naskh, shikasta, divani and nastaleeq and he has participated in various national and international painting exhibitions. Arif has executed monumental calligraphic works such as calligraphy of Surah Rahman.

In all his calligraphic caches of 38 paintings, one could find that his letters and words are not distorted. The use of colours such as red, green, blue and orange is very common in Arif’s work. The artist depicts God in his work as Merciful, Beautiful and Forgiving. Arif loves to write names of Allah and surah Barakarh, as majority of his work highlighted haroof-e-muqattiaat such as Alif, Laam, Meem. Although Arif’s work is simple at the surface level, the themes being dealt in his calligraphy are sometimes difficult to understand.

By and large, there is a musical rhythmic quality in Arif’s work, which is rendered on textured surface through which the white paper reflects like streaks on sharp light.

A graduate of the National College of Arts (NCA) Lahore in graphic designing, Arif has been teaching at the NCA, Punjab University and Lahore College for Women for many years.

Talking to Daily Times, Nomad Gallery Director Nageen Hyat said that Arif’s calligraphy is an amalgamation of both the modern and the traditional. “There is almost an elusive quality in his work as the forms appear and diminish from haze of colours,” she said.

Nageen said that Arif has used ink and watercolours on Wassli, which is a traditional method of calligraphy. “He uses the circular ‘nukta’, which is placed at the pause of each sentence as a decoration on some of the images. He uses kufic, and nastaleeq forms of calligraphy in his work,” she said adding that there is an inter-related rhythm and harmony in Arif’s work. “A wholesome sense of spirituality is evident in his work. A sound understanding of design and an aesthetic sensibility emanate from all his paintings on display. The spontaneous flow in his strokes adds beauty to his work,” Nageen said. The exhibition will continue till January 27.