Written by: Nimra Khan
Posted on: January 31, 2024 | 
| 中文
Untitled by Mian Ijaz ul Hassan
Art has long been a vehicle of resistance, socio-political commentary and activism, yet this role of art has become even more pertinent in recent years. For some artists, art is not merely a tool for political activism but is synonymous with it. Mian Ijaz ul Hassan is one such artist, who has said, “There is no dichotomy — life is both art and politics”.
Untitled by Mian Ijaz ul Hassan
Born in 1940, he studied at Aitchison College in Lahore and then at Saint Martin's School of Art in London. At the National College of Arts, the renowned artist Shakir Ali was his mentor from 1966 to 1975. His art work has been exhibited in India, the USA, France, England, Germany, Italy, Brazil, Belgium and Japan. In Pakistan, his works are displayed in the National Art Gallery, the National Assembly, Lahore Museum, the Punjab Council of Arts (PUCAR) and the Alhamra Art Centre.
His work, even during his student years in London, was politically driven, where he created works on the Vietnam war with a flair of symbolism and a style that can be situated somewhere between Modernism, Pop Art and Realism.
Untitled by Mian Ijaz ul Hassan
His landscapes and the Laburnum trees, the Monstera plant and the Lilies are poignant metaphors of resilience and resistance, many of his works also carry horrific, graphically bloody and devastating imagery with socio-political overtones, whether it be from Vietnam, Kashmir or Palestine. During the ‘70s, a turbulent time for Pakistan, he was incarcerated along with many other artists, poets and activists for his political and independent views expressed with no reservation. Many of his works from this period focus on the trauma of confinement and torture.
Untitled by Mian Ijaz ul Hassan
However, this did not dampen his spirit and he continued to speak for the oppressed to this day. Like many artists and creative practitioners of today, Ijaz ul Hassan has also created an extensive series of works on the ongoing situation in Gaza.
The genocide being carried out by the Israeli government, aided and supported both militarily and financially by the USA and other Western powers, is nothing short of a nightmare, even for those witnessing it second hand on social media. One can only imagine the extent of physical and mental torture for the people whose entire lives and future generation are being decimated before their eyes. The death toll is in the thousands, with women and children slaughtered, dismembered and starved. Infrastructure and even facilities like hospitals and schools have been directly bombed and even cemeteries have been leveled, as the world watches on, unable to put an end to it.
Untitled by Mian Ijaz ul Hassan
The series by Ijaz ul Hassan is visceral and emotive, with a sense of spontaneity and urgency of expression. One can see the pain and devastation and loss of human life even in the abstract paint strokes. The series carries a very similar sensibility in terms of color palette to his previous works, while the style is a bit of a jump from his usual realistic painting style, bursting forth with raw emotion rather than thought out symbolism. His new work shows the impulse to act in the moment and add to the voices crying out to put an end to the massacre.
In Mian Ijaz ul Hassan’s new exhibition, “Devils and Demons”, is an expression of the horror of Gaza being visited on its inhabitants. He has broken away from his past tradition of realism to break into abstract paintings expressing his anguish at the unending bombing and the indiscriminate deaths of men, women and children.
Untitled by Mian Ijaz ul Hassan
Mian Ijaz ul Hassan had teachers like Moyene Najmi and Khalid Iqbal during his school days. He has a history of more than forty years of painting behind him. In his early years he seems to have been influenced by Gaugin, but he was experimenting all the time. He used his immense sense of design and colour to paint very effective pictures with a sharp political and social comment. But political changes in the country restricted open expression and he had to resort to symbols for expressing ideas. He is among the few painters whose early stylization of form gave way to realism. He has a passion for public art and one of his main ambitions is to paint huge pictures in public places which the common man can see regularly. One of the big murals to be made in recent times is the huge ceramic mural that he made for the Alhamra Arts Council in which he experimented with the tiles mosaic method that had been used as wall decoration since the Mughal times. He has over the years made many huge paintings which are breathtakingly beautiful and have been much appreciated.
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