In true bardic tradition, Fazil Mousavi donned a green chogha at the opening of his solo show ‘Hamzaad’ and seated himself before his well-loved copy of the Shahnameh. His cadenced recitation from the revered 1,000-year-old epic created the world anew with sound.

‘Hamzaad’ is a complex exhibition that vitally links the rhythms of sound, text and drawing. Mousavi’s mother tongue is Persian, and it is from the canon of Persian poetry that he draws deep inspiration. He inscribes page upon page of verse in his notebooks from his favorite poets, such as Ferdowsi, Maulana Rum, Abdul Qadir Bedil, Ghalib and Allama Iqbal.

Curator Amra Ali has done well to showcase pages from Mousavi’s elegantly filled notebooks on specially made shelves. The inscribed verses are an intrinsic part of Fazil Mousavi’s art. Each painting incorporates lines of verse from Persian and is accompanied by an explanatory label (translated from Urdu into English by Vaqar Ahmed).

Mousavi’s visualisations, inseparable from his recall of poetry, arise from a mysterious source that he attributes to the “hamzaad” or invisible presence that has been a constant in his life as far back as memory takes him. The hamzaad nudges, dictates and directs him towards the revelatory conjunction between poetic recall and its artistic expression.

A complex solo show by Quetta-based artist Fazil Mousavi tapped into the artistic splendour of the Shahnameh while linking sound, text and drawing

The psychological aspects of the artist’s interaction with the hamzaad gives a touch of magical realism to Mousavi’s imagination. It also resonates with the element of the non-rational, such as found in the novella The Blind Owl by Iranian modernist writer Sadegh Hedayat, and also with Irish poet WB Yeats’ visitations by guiding spirits from the past, such as Leo Africanus.

Mousavi’s considerations on the aesthetics of art support the premise that art emanates from a place of its own rationality, which cannot be explained in logical or argumentative terms.

The process of writing places the artist in a liminal and indeterminate mental zone that hovers between consciousness and subconsciousness. Mousavi describes this state of mind as a labyrinth. Incipient forms begin to mature into drawing, and they spill out from the pages of the notebook on to tea-stained paper or canvas.

The paintings combine abstracted shapes, symbols and poetic text within an austere colour palette dominated by sombre tones of burnt umber, sepia and black — shades of ink such as a poet of old may dip his quill into. The calligraphic elements are touched with gold leaf, as if consecrated by metallic ink.

A spectacularly insightful artwork is a wall-sized canvas called Beyaz [Notebook]. It shows sketches from one of the artist’s notebooks, redrawn on a monumental scale. The assemblage of formed and semi-formed figures captures the chimerical moment when image emerges out of inchoate imagination. A horned creature is discernible, which references the supernatural and demonic white giant from the Shahnameh, who is a usurper and enemy of enlightenment. Mousavi is tapping into the primal mythologies that Ferdowsi incorporated in the Shahnameh as the epic progressed from myth to legend to history.

The antidote to tyranny is also extracted from the Shahnameh in the character of the blacksmith Kaveh. The artwork titled Derafsh [Pennant] shows, in semi-abstracted form, Kaveh’s leather apron, which he untied and repurposed into a banner, signifying rebellion against tyranny.

The painting titled Che Rang Ast Sanam? is a condensed mass of criss-crossed lines, verse and symbols, such as the wheel, the crescent and dome-like shapes. The verses are taken from Mirza Abdul-Qadir Bedil’s poem that queries the nature of truth and seeks to locate it within the zahir/batin [manifest/hidden] dichotomy.

Mousavi carries within him intergenerational trauma. Psychological paralysis brought on by deep trauma is the antithesis of creativity. This paralytic stillness is expressed in the work Dareechon se hawa tak nahin aati [Not even the breeze enters from the windows].

The antidote, as always, lies in a return to verse. Poetic recall is cathartic and rejuvenating. Like a restorative potion, the annotations acquire the power to heal within the sanctuary of line and verse.

‘Hamzaad’ was on display at Chawkandi Gallery in Karachi from January 14-24, 2025

The writer is an independent researcher, writer, art critic and curator based in Karachi

Published in Dawn, EOS, February 2nd, 2025