ISLAMABAD: An exhibition of fantasised digital archival prints of miniature impressions by renowned artist Mohammad Atif Khan was held at the Tanzara Gallery on Thursday.

Atif Khan has built a niche for himself in the local and international art market. His art interweaves Islamic miniature paintings with modern geometric designs and popular culture.

The artist creates mysterious narratives through his juxtapositions of Mughal-era figures within mandala-like landscapes.

As a contemporary image maker, Atif Khan pushes his artistic limits and explores socio-political and cultural issues.

Guests were greeted to striking dark blue colours and intricate patterns. The digital archival prints are long lasting and produced with the continuous ink jet technology of a digital printer. Millions of tiny droplets per second are deposited on absorbent paper, in this case a special German paper

According to the curator of the show Noshi Qadir, Mr Khan’s works have been widely exhibited at home and abroad and is part of private and public collections worldwide.

“He is the recipient of numerous prestigious international awards and has participated in workshops and residencies locally and globally. Atif Khan’s work has been part of collections at the Bradford Museum UK, Aga Khan Museum Toronto, Sharjah Art Museum UAE and the Islamic Museum of Australia, Melbourne,” Noshi Qadir told guests on the opening day.

Atif Khan has several solo shows to his credit in Pakistan, UK, Jordan, Switzerland and India and has participated in numerous group shows. In 2015, he won the Lahore Biennale Foundation’s Open Call competition and developed the monumental site-specific installation ‘City within a City’ at the Chowk Istanbul in Lahore.

Mr Khan is also a faculty member at the prestigious National College of Arts in Lahore since 2005 and is serving as assistant professor in the department of fine arts.

Talking at the event, Mr Khan said he developed his visual vocabulary and imagery on the lines of popular visual culture of Pakistan, which is an amalgamation of central Asian and Persian aesthetics with a local south Asian blend where storytelling is an important feature for expressing thoughts.

“So, when I create my work using the juxtaposition of images of diverse and contrasting environments in one space, it subverts their original contextual meaning and suggests new stories, which generally revolves around the social, economical, political or historical realities but in a subtle way, just like sugar-coated pills, which are sweet from outside but bitter from inside,” he said.

The use of Mughal iconography in his work expands the time zone of the canvas, from the present day to a few hundred years in the past, which helped the viewers to free their minds from the limitations of the real time and to enter into an imaginary world, Atif Khan said.

The show will continue till Oct 31.

Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2018