—Photos by Mian Khursheed

ISLAMABAD: A magnificent collection of paintings by Shafique Farooqi went on display at the AQS Centre of Arts, Culture, Dialogue, Education and Research, where he launched his beautiful coffee table book.

The book titled ‘The Tale of Drunken Flutes in Whirling Dervishes’ is the 5th book by the acclaimed artist who has displayed his work at 101 solo shows and over a hundred group shows all over the world.

Beginning with line drawings, moving to calligraphy and landscape, Farooqi says that his previous work was the foundation for the work inspired by Sufism and Mevlana Rumi. The basis of all art is the line and the movement or dance of the line, he said.

Farooqi discussed his inspiration with the audience, “I am from Sialkot, the city of Iqbal, whose inspiration was Rumi, Hafiz and Goethe and I grew up in a time when we had Iqbal’s poetry on the cover of our textbooks. Then I lived in Istanbul for almost 10 years where the whirling dervishes of Mevlana order are an everyday reality”.

Renowned preservationist Dr Uxi Mufti said: “I have known Shafique for 30 or 40 years now, starting when he was a highly creative audio-visual officer with the Administrative College in Lahore. Then I lost touch with him and many years later I met him while I was roaming the streets of Istanbul. He had a studio on the top floor of a building which overlooked the Semmah House, a place reserved for whirling dervishes. Every night as he worked, Shafique heard the drunken flutes and saw the dance, and one day he joined their number and became one with creation. Thereafter he never ceased to hear the music within him and painted the whirling dervishes.”

Academic Dr Najeeba Arif read an essay about the seekers of the Sufi path and the discipline required to be among them. Culminating in an incredible analogy, her essay proposed the idea of pretending to be in a state, until it becomes reality, or saying sugar, sugar, sugar long enough that the mouth is sweetened. She said: “Farooqi’s book is exactly such a sugar cube.”

Farooqi said: “My paintings are formed out of my impressions, observations and my emotional experiences. I see reality as an endless process of conflict and decisions and therefore the totality can never be resolved in a definite way. The texture of life is like the surface of a block of clay, shaped and moulded by the circumstances of daily conflict, personal and collective catastrophes and individual questioning.”

In an attempt to capture the light of Rumi’s message on canvas, Farooqi has used harmonious, amorphous backdrops against which images of the dervishes appear fluid. His compositions are masterful as the figures are invariably off-centre and gazing into a vastness.

The figures themselves appear to be in the middle of a twirl and while he draws no faces or hands, the faces are almost there and it is after one has moved away from a painting one realizes that the impression of the dancer looking up was just that, an impression.

His coffee table book is an exquisite collection of paintings and equally enlightening essays. His ability to depict a range of Sufi rituals and states of being in his choice of colours is well represented in his book. From the vibrant, deep reds to the cool blues and greens, from the lone dancer to the entire flock, Farooqi has painted it all.

He says, however, “This is the first step in my journey. What I did in the past, was the foundation and now I intend to move closer to the essence of Iqbal. The artist becomes an artist after a series of steps, from observation to conception to internalisation and then produces that which holds true to his inner vision.”

Published in Dawn, June 17th, 2015

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