A promising visual artist, Ghulam Hussain Guddu, was born to a family of artisans making carved and decorated furniture, commissioned by rich families in Sindh.

He remembers watching his father weaving colourful beds meant for the newlyweds as a child.

The weaving patterns that would emerge were very fascinating for a schoolboy who would keep on watching that ‘magic’ with great enthusiasm.

But he was kept away from the traditional craft intentionally so that he could focus on his studies.

“My father wanted me to excel in studies and get a good job, but I was an average student, more interested in drawing than books.

“Inspired by my elder brother Muhammad Rafique, who is an artist and art teacher, I used to draw regularly,” he vividly recalls.

After learning the fundamentals of drawing and painting from his elder brother, he joined the National College of Arts to do his major in the miniature painting.

“While doing a class assignment in the second year, I thought of employing the traditional craft of weaving to create visuals.

“During summer vacation, I went to Sukkur to learn the skills of weaving from an old lady, making floor mats using date palm leaves,” he recalls.

He learnt the basic technique in a couple of weeks but kept in touch with this artisan for more than a year to master the details.

For more than last eight years he has been practising this indigenous craft to create contemporary visuals.

The first body of work he created was weaved old film posters. He fused the film images in such a way that the real faces disappeared, still depicting the growing culture of violence in society.

Soon he ran short of old film posters and started using printed images from magazines to create new works.

With one solo and a good number of group shows in Pakistan to his credit, his works also got selected and displayed at some major art galleries abroad.

Selection of his works by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund for a group show at Chashama Art Gallery, New York, in 2013 opened up new dimensions to his creative ventures.

“During my visit to New York, I spent maximum time seeing the works of master painters. I relate myself with the works of Piet Mondrian.

“The squares, rectangles and the stripes weaved together attracted me a lot,” he said.

Inspired by this experience, he has been creating a body of work titled ‘Dialogue with Piet Mondrian’, to be displayed in a solo show, for the last couple of years.

He is also running a small studio to teach aspiring young artists, besides working for an art gallery as an archives assistant.

The features of human faces started disappearing gradually from his visuals and they are turning into a combination of simple geometric shapes. In most of his works, he has left a small area of paper sheet to define the origin of material he is playing with.

It seems he weaves his visuals with keen labour and then works further to conceal his effort, through synchronisation perhaps till the image is rendered humble, effortless and minimal.

Published in Dawn, September 25th, 2015

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