Written by: Nayha Jehangir Khan
Posted on: October 27, 2020 | 
Flight in the Night
Over the years Muhammad Atif Khan has dedicated his printmaking practice to creating a personalised Imaginarium, quipped with shades of fantastical transcendence, existential angst between the heart and mind, earth and water, war and love. His kaleidoscopic lens combines the historically familiar motifs of Mughal figures, Islamic design, earthy landscapes, sporadic architecture and aquatic bodies that fill in the chapters of his otherworldly novella. This continues to be seen in his latest exhibition, titled, “More Love Songs” at Tanzara Art Gallery in Islamabad.
Between dreams and reality, Khan invites his viewers into a hall of mirrors, by repeating images within the same picture plane. The translucent washes of watercolour hang mysteriously onto the textured fibres of Hahnemühle FineArt paper, that act as an anchoring surface for the flowing vibrancy of colour. The rich watercolour contrasts with the intricate black printed penwork detail. The lightweight transitional tones of Cadmium Yellow, Cerulean Blue and Viridian frame the representational forms centrally placed within the frame.
Mystic Flight
The artist playfully dabbles with retaining the atmosphere of a heavy printing press, using his signature and date below the image in an old fashioned style, despite using the entirely contemporary technique of creating a digitised collection of images collaged together and printed using Inkjet. The unidentifiable quality creates the painterly rendition that transports the viewer into the imagination of the artist.
A magician knows how to woo his audience by creating a labyrinth of optical illusions that hypnotise the viewer using sleight of hand and charisma. We are able to experience a panoramic view of Khan’s practice, as the work from 2019 has an ultra-wide lens on large paper that is stretched vertically and horizontally. These cinematic murals have a towering presence, inlaid with the surreal suspense of disproportionate objects. Larger than life rocks balance on a miniature tree, which have the romantic detail of a protagonist balancing a pile of metaphorical hearts, as seen in Deep inside the valley of the heart, ii. Alternately, the climatic scales become a focal point of The Stage, where two polarised tribes are seen duelling to their death.
The Stage
If we go back further into Khan’s artistic repertoire, we see in the intimately scaled print titled Enigma from 2014. A tree is surrounded by a frame of foliage, creating a portal or a window into another realm. This foliage has travelled into the centre of the frame by 2020, as seen in Love Song i that transformed the small window into a grand island reflected in the water, creating an oscillatory portrait that feels multidimensional to the viewer.
Love Song, i
These vibrating lines have a unique frequency that Khan digitally manipulates to amplify their effect on the viewer’s eyes, creating something of a sensory motion. The moment captured in Love Song ii, shows two lovers gazing at each other surrounded by a hum of synchrony depicted by the sunset and flocks of birds orbiting, while the fish are swimming perfectly around the two rocks balancing each other at the centre of the frame.
In the third and final act of the “Love Song” series, a perfectly rendered rock stands alone in an animated body of water with crashing waves at the bottom, while a microscopic and camouflaged shrine nestles at the edge, creating a vast distance between the viewer and the building. Through this strange push and pull of force within the same picture, Khan is able to transfigure a collage into an act of storytelling.
Nayher Wala Pull, iii
Khan has taken inspiration from current affairs, folklore, history, politics, nature, poetry and philosophy to direct a whimsical show, in which he is the supreme marionettist. He stages his characters and landscapes with drama, emotions and beauty that pulls one deeper into the illusion. More Love Songs by Atif Khan will continue at Tanzara Gallery till November 5th, 2020.
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