KARACHI: Arif Mahmood is a seasoned photographer. In fact, it’s not right to categorise him as such — he is an artist. Who is an artist? Answer: someone who depicts life and its myriads of mysteries with an “enduring artistic quality”.

Anyone who has followed Arif’s journey, and it’s a pretty long one, will endorse the claim that his black and white photography is no lesser in artistic merit than a painting or a piece of sculpture that seeks to capture a moment in time with its temporal and metaphysical manifestations.

His latest exhibition of works titled Pestonjee/Silver Linings that can be seen at the Canvas Art Gallery is, in a manner of speaking, an extension of his ongoing work, part of his oeuvre. The show, which will conclude on March 4, has two sections.

The first is about an old Parsi man, someone he started taking pictures of in 2013 and carried on doing until 2020. It is evident from the images that Arif is highlighting multiple things and trying to save them for posterity without losing out on its aesthetic grace. The archival inkjet prints narrate the story of an old man and his physical and psychological state, of a community whose members in our nook of the world are diminishing by the day, and of a time period looking back at which the viewer can only “yearn to return”. These themes are masterfully captured.

Then there is the other segment of the show, which is a transformation from the physical to the spiritual realm. This spiritual world is one of the artist’s favourite themes over the years — in this case from 1988 to 2020. The reference is to the shrines that he likes to visit. So, despite the black and white texture of the exhibits on display, the contrast is striking and understandable. Arif is a man who investigates matters related both to body and soul … with equal intensity.

Published in Dawn, March 4th, 2021