Written by: Nayha Jehangir Khan
Posted on: February 06, 2019 | 
Still Life with Lilies, Book and Peacock by Irfan Cheema
The opening of the show, “Tableaux” by Irfan Cheema was held at Tanzara Gallery, Islamabad on 4th February, 2019. The artist, Irfan Cheema had flown in from Shanghai, China with his wife and two children to attend the opening.
Cheema’s paintings are a collection of moments that he has experienced through his own vivid sensory memory. All seventeen of these oil paintings are a labour of love that the artist has executed over the course of one year. The elements at play in these paintings go deeper than the delicate layers of oil paint, or the stoically poised objects Cheema actively directs on his table top, and purposefully composes for creating a living picture. Cheema’s priority as an artist might seem absolute realism, yet the emotive quality of his objects and their careful selection, has a nostalgic and synesthetic nature. With each painting these fruits, flowers, foliage, vases and bowls change, eluding the viewer and leaving only hints of the passage of time.
Cheema challenges himself to create an experience similar to that of viewing seasonal transitions, which seems like an impossibility as one cannot know the exact moment when spring changes into fall. Yet, in the world Cheema creates, these transcendental moments are given a visual visage. The palette of these intimate paintings, are predominately muted and controlled colours, with soft painterly strokes and crisp lines creating an almost medieval atmosphere. The paintings have a photographic perspective with constructed colour depth of field and lighting techniques. For e.g. in “Still Life with Grapes & Kashmir Shawl,” there are a plethora of details such as how Cheema captures the edges of objects with highlights: he carefully places these objects in a way which picks up on the singular light source that illuminates these arrangements.
Each painting is complete and independent. Much like a coming together of shrines, the presence of these works together in Tanzara Gallery feels monumental. A landscape typically moves from foreground and middle ground to background, and even though Cheema allows his paintings to incorporate an architectural exploration through the historical “triangle composition,” there is also a hierarchical struggle happening between the objects in the frame. Subtle movements can be witnessed between shadows and light, as the glass and brass gleams with crisp white highlights. The painting, “Still Life with Finches & Strawberries” has painterly suggestions of the surrounding environments, such as light filled window panels that can be traced reflected on bowls and vases.
Cheema has an art journal on his website where he documents his memories and botanical experiences. In one such entry, he writes about a “vermillion red ginger jar,” and this jar is seen in the painting “Still Life with Roses & Chinese Brocade.” He explains that this was “a present from my sons on my birthday in November.” This painting, emblematic of fatherly love, also showcases the warmth of celebrating your family’s participation in your creative process.
A new actor has entered the stage of Cheema’s table, and these are the birds lightly hopping across the still life, some looking around, others quietly sharing a moment with each other, while the rest enhance the already surreal pause in time of these works. The birds in the paintings, “Still Life with Budgies, Decanter & Kashmir Shawl”, “Still Life with Finches & Fruits” and “Still Life with Chukar Partridges & Grains,” are detailed, directional and bring together the objects in an orbital motion. In fact, the cosmic environment in one particular painting, “Still Life with Lychees & Kashmir Shawl,” transforms the lychees hung and placed, with a constellation focus making them appear celestial.
Cheema is an Art Explorer; in fact one is reminded of Phileas Fogg, the protagonist in the 1873 Jules Verne novel, Around the World in Eighty Days. He is actively searching for curiosities, he does not settle for anything less than perfection. He then brings this back into his studio and crafts a tapestry worth viewing, all while taking a subconscious dive into the deep waters of his visual repertoire.
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