November 8, 2003

In the catalogue of Ahmed Khan’s recent exhibition at Canvas gallery in Karachi Colin David quotes the former as saying, “Designing, sculpture and painting... are all a prerogative of God, and the more skillful you are, the closer you get to the undying concept of the Oneness of God.” Ahmed Khan, as a painter and calligrapher, carries on the time-honoured tradition of the glorification of God through art. His untitled works, grouped under the general theme, About Oneness of God and Peace, are stunningly complex testimonials of both, the artist’s skill and God’s omnipotence.

Underneath Ahmed Khan’s smooth, lacquered surfaces lies a world of colour and depth. The artist, having a background in printmaking, has applied gold and silver leaf on canvas in layers that incorporate a lot of rich, gem-like colours, such as red, orange and ochre, as well as blues and greens at the other end of the spectrum. The use of gold and silver in such a painstaking and time-consuming technique enhances the precious nature of the Quranic verses presented in the paintings.

The pitch-black background or negative space in some of the paintings also brings home the revelational quality of God’s words. The luminescent, shimmering Arabic shines out of the darkness like knowledge in a world of ignorance. The words overlap each other so that those in the background are hard to see clearly; when the viewer examines the paintings more closely, he or she is overwhelmed by the sheer amount of lettering found in them.

The artist was born in Shahjehanpur, UP (India) and graduated from the National College of Arts in 1963. He then served that institution as a lecturer in graphic design until 1988. He has designed and created several Pakistani public monuments as well as participated and organized printmaking workshops, working with artists from the USA, Japan, and Italy. Over the years, he has perfected a technique of painting with silver and gold leaf and transparent colours that involves chemical reactions, an example of which can be seen in the interior of the National Assembly Hall.

The work requires a lot of time and labour; the paints take a long time to dry, for which reason Ahmed Khan works on several paintings simultaneously as well takes help from students. His designs are far more complex in terms of the effort and experimentation that goes into their creation than a cursory inspection of his paintings would seem to indicate.

Ahmed Khan’s use of abstract designs complements his devotional theme. No floral motif (the staple of most Islamic art and calligraphy), human figure (commonplace in Sadequain’s work), or anything resembling an earthly object is to be found here. Calligraphy is an important part of his design scheme; the words themselves create patterns while, at other times, they are compressed so as to fill and decorate shapes and spaces. In either case, they become virtually impossible to decipher.

The viewer is free to make his or her own interpretations of the circles, half-circles, ovals, squares, and wavy shapes that make up Ahmed Khan’s paintings. The gold circles, filled with Arabic script, call to mind antique coins and medallions; the gleaming yellow half-circles, some of which have tones of terracotta, remind one of ancient examples of metal work. The irregular shapes are reminiscent of plaster peeling off the walls of ancient Muslim monuments, which often had Arabic and Persian inscriptions.

In one of the paintings, earth-toned blocks of colour, edged with black, tear into a space that has iridescent hues of silver, gold, and ochre. The edges of this lighter part of the painting, where they meet the brown areas, are discoloured (there are even patches of green, as if to indicate fungus growth). The entire surface of the painting is almost completely covered with script.

The only aesthetically disturbing element in Ahmed Khan’s highly refined harmonies of colour and design is, ironically enough, his signature. Large and in Roman letters, it vies with the rest of the painting for the viewer’s attention. The artist would have done better by signing in Urdu or marking the paintings with a personalized logo; for then two entirely different scripts would not have come into view on the same canvas.