Khadim Ali
Khadim Ali’s current body of work reflects his many concerns and demonstrates a deft way of combining mediums and conceptualizations. The artist´s deepening anxieties about events in the region he still calls ‘home’, (both Pakistan and Afghanistan) reflects his responsibility about his role as an artist.
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The subject matter of his work may appear to be symbolic but it is born and bred in the conflict zones in South and central Asia and the Near East. The demons rising up to wrestle; locked in violent combat, may be recreating the epics he heard as a child, but they are also referring to contemporary battles among the powerful. In one rug the combatants are identified by their clothing. One, wearing a garment in red, white and blue, overpowers the other, whose sarong looks suspiciously like the Pakistani flag! The calligraphic forms in red carry no meanings, but are symbolic of the “erasure of historical texts from the national archives” according to the artist. "This is a forced forgetting", he adds. There are numerous signs of strife even when the figures are apparently in repose and unruffled. The atmosphere is tense, the presence of luscious foliage and burnished gold leaf surfaces are not enough to reassure us that anarchy will not prevail.
Also exhibited in ARNDT Singapore (June 28 - September 6, 2015).
For more information visit: Salima Hashmi, 2015
Image: Kadist