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Munir Ahmed
The Louvre Gallery Thursday put on display the renowned artist Mansoor Rahi’s three different forms of sketching following the ‘Resurrect Rock Series’, his own school of thought.
During the last two decades, Rahi has developed these forms and named as Synergy, Iconography, and Volume. According to him, Synergy is a mix of harsh and soft sketching medium, and Iconography is a sketch developed by singular line without ant support or colour, while Volume forms are made through the shades that define shapes.
Rahi says Synergy is something that he developed when he was thinking about music how the instruments complement each other in a melody. He is the one who has used charcoal and markers to develop this form that may be termed as the symphony of lines.
“The line drawn with the marker is a basic support like the music instrument tabla that support the actual symphony played on the main music instrument sitar. Both, graphite and marker complement each other.”
Rahi is the second artist who has dared to experiment with the medium of ordinary marker after Sadequain. Perhaps, just for a simple reason that a line drawn with a marker is permanent and cannot be undone. The medium’s harshness needs a very seasoned hand while using markers.
His second form of sketches is the Iconography that is as different from the usual sketch as chalk is from cheese. Iconography is a result of imaginative shape in the artists mind, he gives freedom to his hand yet he remains in his school of thought. The Volume sketches are made with the soft medium of graphite filling in and making forms without any support of line. The Volume series is completely neutralizes the hard formation of the ‘Resurrect Rock Series’.
Mansoor Rahi’s work does not only create a mood of innovation but also the new forms and illusion of values but also open a vision of free expression. Softness of love, rhythmic flexibility of human figure integrated with stiff world of rock forms leads mind to venture into new world of classical synthesis of composition.
In his work, the forms of human figure and tension of psychedelic value creates a world of ‘Neo-Cubo-Precisionism’. For the last 52 years of his work, Rahi has been evolved through five phases to his present style of artwork.
Alina Saeed, curator of the Gallery Louvre says, “This exhibition is a great learning opportunity not only to artists, and art students, but also to art admirers. It is rare for an artist to share a blueprint of his work, but in this exhibition the sketch work of all three kinds are as explanatory as they could get for anyone to understand.”
Mansoor Rahi is one master of art who shares his learning with an open heart; his art school has produced many accomplished artists not only in Pakistan but also at international level.
He has also shared his volume of knowledge by hosting a morning show that taught art to viewers for more than six years. He has read papers in international seminars in Tokyo, West Germany and in France. His contributions have definitely increased the standard of art teaching and appreciation of art. Published in daily Dateline Islamabad, December 23, 2011
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