Profile: Synthesising poetry, music and design
Unlike a number of painters and sculptors moving out to Europe, Canada or the US to settle down, Ejaz Malik — who also has French citizenship — insists it was an obligation for him to return to Pakistan as all his artistic inspirations come from the country he was born in.
He came to France at a young age in 1984 as a student of the Paris Interior Design Institute. His ascensions were rapid, first with a diploma there in 1986, then two years later another one from the College of Contemporary Furniture Design. By 1994 he would, in addition, earn a degree from the Belleville Academy of Architecture.
Life moved at a hectic pace at that stage, he reminisces: “I had come to Paris to study designing and architecture but had no idea I’d be spending not only weekends but also my entire summer and winter vacations visiting museums. I’d move from one hall to another of these legendary places, carrying my sketch book and replicating on its pages chef d’oeuvres in the Louvre, Modern Art, Pompidou, Grand Palais, Petit Palais as well as Zadkine and Orsay museums.”
Painter and sculptor Ejaz Malik brings his training as an architect and interior design to his art. But also much, much more ...
Another turning point in Malik’s artistic life would be reading the letters of Vincent Van Gogh to his brother Theo. He says that while going through these letters he discovered himself profoundly close to the feelings of Van Gogh.
“Here was a man who not only painted sunflower fields, trees and birds but could also transfer his visions of winds and stars in dark skies onto his canvases,” says Malik. “He suffered throughout his brief life and shared his thoughts with his brother which left a deep impact on me. My other influences would be Cezanne, Picasso, Braque and later Marcel Duchamp with his intricate and often provocative works.”
Malik soon enrolled himself at the Louvre School to study the techniques and history of art.
“How lucky I was,” he recalls, “…with my Louvre student card I could visit all the museums in Europe for free and never hesitated for a moment to take buses and trains or to hitchhike to London, Rome, Naples, Amsterdam, Madrid, not to speak of many cities of France, to stand facing the classic tableaux, watercolours, engravings and statues I had never dreamt of seeing in my lifetime.”