KARACHI: Artist Hanif Shahzad is known for making delightful cityscapes. There’s a touch of realism to his art that’s hard to miss. But at the heart of his effort is his consuming love for Karachi. Yes, when it comes to painting the city by the sea and its colonial buildings, there are few who can match Shahzad’s artistic panache.

An exhibition of his latest body of work that commenced at the Chawkandi Art Gallery on Tuesday is another testimony to his love for Karachi.

There are more than 20 artworks on display, and all of them done in oil on canvas. But from the moment you look at the first exhibit, ‘Hindu Gymkhana’, things such as what medium it’s made in, assume a secondary position because you are struck by the close-to-nature depiction of the subject. This becomes all the more appreciable in a few images of ‘Port Grand’. The artist appears to be super impressed by the ambience of the venue which has multiple factors going for it: the architecture, the sea breeze, the anchored ships in the background and the teeming Karachiites who make the atmosphere (at public places) livelier with their presence.

Now all of this sounds like a moving scene, but Shahzad manages to do that in a frozen frame. Even the play of light, the setting of the sun, the yellowness that engulfs living and nonliving objects etc highlights the non-stationary aspect of our remarkable city life.

A similar approach with a different background can be seen in ‘Tower’. Now Tower, as we all know, is one of the busiest intersections in the (old) city, dotted with a variety of markets; and there is never a dull moment there. The artist draws it after dusk, when a certain degree of lethargy has crept into the whole familiar scenario. It can be sensed both in the way the vehicles are parked and in the postures of men and women in the frame. It’s art imitating life, and surpassing the reality of the latter.

The exhibition concludes on July 18.

Published in Dawn, July 12th, 2018