Wooed by the muse of the mundane, artist Ayaz Jokhio reposes his faith in the mystery of art. His current solo, ‘A poet’s country: his eyes’, at Green Cardamom, London, exhibits the axiomatic beauty of the ordinary and the unremarkable as sources of profound meanings.
Reconfiguring the marvel of the everyday and the banal as allegory, symbol or parable, he portrays a selection of mixed media art that speaks beyond its apparent familiarity. The artworks, personifications of his perceptions, challenge viewers to rethink and re-look with their mind’s eye. Encouraging spectator participation as a prompter to individual observations, the simplistic works unravel as twisters and teasers.
Recycling newspaper scraps into collage elements, his ‘Diptych: a well and a roundtable conference’ reads at several levels. As a poet and journalist, he is familiar with the art of sugar coating grave social concerns in satirical humour or lyrical prose. Critical of media hype and hysteria so prevalent today, he toys with newsprint as a physical medium. By cutting and fragmenting newspapers he tries to invalidate the written word on the one hand and by rebuilding with the detritus, he attempts to recreate fictitious images addressing live issues.
Referring to political and social anxieties and an urban/rural divide, ‘A well and a roundtable conference’ contains (un)related thoughts/ images that nonetheless share a centrality—conceptually both images are people centered and address community issues, while physically both congregate around a spherical perimeter.
This play of perception is well-enacted in the ‘Narangi’ image too. Conceptually this artwork critiques the vagaries of language and directly references the Doha Chalti ka naam gaadi, by the great Indian saint and poet Kabir. Jokhio constructs on the line Rangeen ka naam narangi. Literally ‘narangi’ means without colour, yet it is the local name of a particular variety of the edible orange fruit.
Making extensive use of dust powder, stencils and fixative, he creates a dust painting of an orange citrus which is dust coloured and not orange in appearance yet visually it is assimilated as an orange product. This harmless inconsistency caused by ambiguity of meaning arising from misuse of language or misconstruction of a reference, can have severe repercussions when applied to misconceptions about serious issues. The artwork alludes to illogical behaviour caused by contradictory statements and a consequent need to exercise restraint and thoughtfulness.
The well-known poet, Hassan Dars, a friend of the artist, who died in an accident in 2011, is referenced in the poignant back of a photograph, a formal tribute to the poet and his artwork. This reverence extends to the title of the exhibition, ‘A poet’s eyes: his world’, taken from the work by Dars that chimes closely with Jokhio’s view of the world. “…he resides in the places his eyes can see /a poet’s country/his eyes.” Dars, (translated from Sindhi by Mohammad Hanif and Hasan Mujtaba)
As a contemporary artist Jokhio is intent on exploring fresh perspectives and attributing new connotations to established norms. Resisting specific categorisation and prescribed procedures, his art veers from video and installation to drawing and collage as freely as a child at play. Change being the only constant in his art there are nonetheless some recurring features that now identify his oeuvre. He pays attention to his craft, frequently opts for collage effects and has a preference for graphite/pencil drawing and is often partial to the realistic image.
Double entendre fascinates him and he relishes translating poetic metaphors and idioms with multiple meanings as visual conundrums. Born in Mehrabpur, Sindh, he is familiar with the words of wisdom preached by the Sufi, saints and mystics that inhabited this region in profusion, and it is the nuanced undercurrent of those messages that pin his art to the land he belongs to.
Crafted in clay, Jokhio’s rustic terracotta brick engraved with an image of the Taj Mahal in a heart-shaped enclosure can only speak as an art object, if it is identified within a context—an artist/poet would craft it to enunciate the universal philosophy of love, peace and harmony.
Jokhio’s recent exhibitions include, ‘Drawn from life’, Abbot Hall, Cumbria UK 2011 and courtesy Green Cardamom, his work will also be shown at Art Dubai in March 2012.