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Stories in stone

by Nadeem Alam 2015-09-20
akistan has never been very amenable for sculpture, therefore, there are very few artists who have adopted sculpture on the professional level.

Khaleeq ur Rehman is a urologist by profession but his passion towards stone carving, that should be considered as his early love for sculpture, dates back to his childhood.

Along with his formal school education, Rehman kept on polishing his artistic skills at the studios of local Ustads and Arts Council of Multan, and later at the Alhamra Arts Council Lahore. From painting in oils, he found himself drifting towards carving, chiseling and polishing various stones to discover their distinct character and nature while converting them into diverse shapes.

The reason behind his passion is quite rational, and lies in the artist`s frequent exposure to the sculptures displayed at the Lahore and Taxila Museums and the inlay work at the Lahore Fort, Badshahi Mosque and Jahangiri Tomb.

Rehman in his exhibition at the Zahoor-ul Akhlag Galleries of the National College of Arts, Lahore, presented his work based on these traditions and techniques. He, through his creative journey, tried to explore the new possibilities of creating sculpture that would be modern in concept but very conventional in technique.

This is his conscious effort to revive the historically indigenous expertise of stone carving with depiction of everyday life activities and objects. He used the same stoneswhich traditionally were popular in the mentioned epochs; schist, jangshahi and the sandstone.

The simple, and somehow childlike, motifs along with comparatively more exhaustive rendering of fruits and figures create a visual balance in these carvings. On the other hand, the finished surfaces of these pieces are as important as is the shape of these works, where schist stone has been used for detailed, subtle and sensitive carvings, jangshahi for a lustrous feel of polished surface and the sandstone for textured or more vibrant exterior. The inlay work is mainly carried out by using marble and lapis-lazuli.

The `Chaukhandi-II` and the `Untitled-III` in jangshahi stone present interesting forms of a bird and of a profiled face. The bird expresses the dynamics of pre-flying posture while the face with slightly opened eyes, on the opposite, advocates the thought process in an atmosphere mentioning the meditation where a tiny plant suggests the spiritual connection.

Keeping in mind the artist`s sincere effort of covering various aspects from the concept to the technique and from a cause of reviving the lost and diminishing skills to the contemparary challenges of the corporate world, these sculptures appear with a strong sense of communication.

The narrative, chiseled, carved or inlaid delicately in the solidity of different stones, not only captures the onlooker`s attention physically but also involves him or her psychologically, with a sense of Déjà vu. •