When I last met Abdul Jabbar Gull a few months back, he was busy accepting plaudits on behalf of his son, Bilal Jabbar, who had recently been awarded the Emerging Artist Prize at the Karachi Biennale (KB22).

His son’s installation, Wall of Thoughts, was amongst my favourite artworks on display at KB22, and I teasingly told Gull, that if Bilal kept this up, he’d soon be outshining his father. Gull replied with his customary graciousness, “I certainly hope he does!” As prodigious of a talent as Bilal is, that’s going to be a difficult feat.

Armed with an artistic sensibility which was forged in the metal workshops of Mirpurkhas, further developed while painting cinema-hoardings and finally refined at the National College of Arts (NCA), Lahore, Gull sits high atop the rather short catalogue of contemporary Pakistani sculptors. But his latest exhibition at the Koel Gallery is a radical departure from the sculptures which earned him a long list of admirers.

The exhibit ‘Corporeal to Ethereal’ is a collection of artwork that Gull created over a span of three decades which, bafflingly and beguilingly, does not include a single sculpture — instead featuring paintings, drawings and prints.

Abdul Jabbar Gull’s latest exhibition sees him wade into unexplored waters — paintings, drawings and prints

Gull’s work on display here not only showcases his evolution as an artist over the past 30 years, but also reveals that the burning questions he tackled during the infancy of his artistic career still hold centre stage in his mind, primarily his unending fascination with the physical and spiritual world.

Given the sheer breadth of the artwork, the indomitable Noorjehan Bilgrami says that cataloguing, organising and displaying these works presented her with quite the curatorial headache. But, as Bilgrami invariably always does at Koel, she managed to pull it off with her usual ease.

Gull’s paintings pulsate with life due to his generous usage of vibrant reds, oranges and blues, and Urdu words and numbers are laced throughout many of his artworks. His paintings are often rife with overt religious symbolism and are populated by dumpy, rotund, steely-faced figures reminiscent of the Colombian artist Fernando Botero’s bloated creations.

After a brief stint in South Africa some time ago, Gull’s sculptures morphed into the looping aesthetics of English artist Henry Moore’s languid public sculptures. Some of Gull’s previous sculptures show a multitude of column-like figurines with flattened faces encircling a cube. Due to the similarity in form, the figures in Gull’s paintings hearken back to these sculptures of his.

But I’d wager that Gull’s most arresting works here are the ones which showcase his ability to capture the human form in a truer sense. His self-portrait, portrait of another man and his depiction of an individual lying in a disconcertingly unnatural position on the floor convey a sense of melancholy and manage to speak volumes despite their muted, pallor colours and non-existent iconography.

His sketches are equally captivating, despite their apparent simplicity and, although these particular works of his are relatively older, I’d be keen to see him try to recapture the style and essence of these paintings in his newer artworks.

Although the symbolic through-line that has governed Gull’s art over the years remains unwavering, ‘Corporeal to Ethereal’ makes it evident that he is now ready to fashion a new visual sensibility in his artwork. While discussing the impetus behind this exhibition, Bilgrami reveals, “Gull wants to establish himself as a painter now.” As far as I’m concerned, he’s off to a flying start.

‘Corporeal to Ethereal’ is on display at the Koel Gallery from May 30-June 14, 2023.

The writer is a member of staff and was selected for Vasl’s Art Writers’ Residency, 2020.

He can be contacted at hasnain.nawab1@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, June 4th, 2023