HAKIL AIGOLS

ALCUTTA ONTINUUMC

ALCUTTA ONTINUUMC

HAKIL AIGOLS

‘’The Sleep of a Hundred Years I Calcutta Unchanged’’ Victoria Memorial2016Acrylic, Oil and Inks on Canvas74 x 53 inches....

Shakil Saigol returns once more to the city of his birth, Calcutta, to revel in and be sustained by the places and spaces he knew as a boy and also to which he has been drawn by an adult by something akin to a cultural umbilical cord. Unlike his previous series centred on Calcutta, Calcutta Revisited, where the thoughts articulated on canvas were almost entirely made up of personal memories, the present series Calcutta Continuum eloquently expresses his continuing love affair with the city and all that it has to offer from its magnificent yet crumbling Raj architecture to its vibrant literary, musical and cinematic traditions. These are not the works of a detached outsider merely chronicling a city and its people. Instead, they are visual love letters, meticulously picking out facets of a beloved to be highlighted and shown off to the world. Despite all its manifest problems, Shakil Saigol is enormously proud of Calcutta and it is this loving and empathetic vision he offers his audience. In the foreground of The Sleep of a Hundred Years (i) Calcutta Unchanged Victoria Memorial, a dhoti-clad local with his legs tucked in snoozes on a chair while a similarly dressed bearded man is sprawled out sleeping the exhausted sleep of the working man. Behind them looms the magnificent edifice of the Victoria Memorial, as though protecting them through their slumber; offering some sense of security and continuity in a metropolis which is rapidly changing beyond recognition. This despair is felt even more acutely in the figure holding his head in his hands in the companion piece The Sleep of a Hundred Years (ii) Calcutta Unchanged Belur Math where the dark clouds looming over the temple structure appear symbolic of the spirit of intolerance which often grips the city. Ever the masterful portrait painter, Saigol brings his considerable skills to Shradhanjali: Homage to Master Rabindranath Tagore and Maestro Satyajit Ray. He depicts Tagore as a splendidly-dressed and bejewelled young man, on whom virtually magical powers of creativity are being showered through divine thunderbolts reminiscent of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam. The richness and tactility of the poet’s costume contrast with the plainness of the tribal women in the background to create a layered and subtle tribute to the variegated genius of Tagore. The spirit of Tagore looms large over Satyajit Ray who was educated at Tagore’s university and who adapted many of the master’s works for the cinema. Saigol shows Ray sitting under an umbrella, his handsome and serene face contemplating a scene while frogs gambol on the branches above his head. It is this ability to merge the significant with the quotidian – with a dash of humour – which raise what would otherwise have been mere portraits to the level of noteworthy tributes. That cinema is a great passion of Saigol’s is evident from even the most casual glance at his oeuvre. This is a love he has in common with most people in the subcontinent cutting across economic, social and cultural barriers. The sinewy, working men in the three After the Haul works – they could be porters in one of central Calcutta’s numerous markets – are

“To Calcutta: Much Loved, Much Abused and Always Interesting”- Desmond Doig

Monsoon2016 Acrylic, Oil and Inks on Canvas60 x 60 inches...

.

shown against a backdrop of actors, actresses and cultural figures. It is as though Saigol is inviting them to rest after their labours and partake of the wondrous world of cinema and all that it has to offer. Tender, touching and in no way maudlin, they are celebrations of a magical medium and the hold it has over the human imagination. No Saigol series is complete without its Rehana images and, as he frequently does, Saigol reserves his best for Rehana. In one of the most poignant and haunting works in this series, Rehana attired simply in a saree with stripes sits in a corridor of an old Calcutta mansion, lost in thought with a shadow of a smile playing on her lips. Her figure dominates the composition and is reminiscent of Clio – the muse of history – a witness to the vagaries of time. The chequer-board marble tiles, stunted columns and louvered doors speak of a bygone era, of palaces which gave the city its sobriquet during the Raj, where personal and collective histories were played out. A flowering plant in the corner of the work suggests that even amidst the ravages of time, life and hope spring in the most unlikely of places. This is the world of Satyajit Ray’s Music Room: timeless, evocative and mildly tragic. The corridor returns in Endless Afternoon ii which is, arguably, the most powerful work of the series. Two elderly women – possibly spectral presences – sit in the corridor while a middle-aged man, bespectacled and clad in a half-sleeved shirt and dhoti (the traditional attire of Bengali men at home) contemplates some deep mystery. At the end of the corridor, the portrait of an ancestress hangs above a door with stained glass. The past, as it were, keeps watch over the present. The power of the past is at its most visceral in the triptych Halcyon Days Apu, Abu and I in which the young Saigol photographs his stunningly beautiful and elegant mother while his father looks on. Like Charles Ryder in Brideshead Revisited, he seems to wish: “if it could only be like this always.” After working-class porters and the mansions of the haute bourgeoisie, Saigol captures the spirit of the middle classes perfectly in Metro Monotony in which two gentlemen – probably junior civil servants or clerks – play an intense game of chess. Their deep concentration is entirely at odds with their surroundings; the rolled umbrella of one of the players heightening the sense of reality of the image. This sense of the real is also prevalent in Monsoon in which a sensual young woman sways languidly under an umbrella as several pairs of male eyes – from the man in a seersucker suit to the uniformed policeman – ogle her. Suggestive of the films of the 1940s and 50s, this is erotic yet restrained and all the more powerful for what it leaves unsaid. This series is unusual in that it explores all the possibilities of a single colour –blue – with the occasional foray into green. Why are these colours so significant for Saigol? Are they the colours of his Calcutta dreams; the colours of his past or the colours which have left their imprint on him on subsequent visits to the city? As a delightful aside, Saigol also pays homage to the artists of the Bengal School who like their Chinese forebears stamped their works rather than signed them. This is Saigol the artist: steeped in history, immensely knowledgeable about the city of his birth but a virtuoso whose dreams – and nightmares – are all his own.

Anirudh Chari Anirudh Chari is an art critic and curator who lives and works in Calcutta.

‘’Shraddhanjali’’ Homage to the Master Rabindra Nath Tagore2016 Acrylic, Oil and Inks on Canvas100 x 55 inches...

.

Nostalgia is a wonderful resource. It allows one to store positive emotions and nurturing memories that enable one to create a reservoir, as it were, to savour and relish in perpetuity.Calcutta and memories of my early years continue to inspire me. The imagery infuses my subconscious and my dreams with innumerable, haunting visions. If I paint to the end of my days I will still have left something that I failed to record on canvas.The city has been the backdrop of my childhood memories. My earlier works on Calcutta were portrayed through the eyes of a five year old. They were largely autobiographical, extremely personal, and to a certain extent, naive. The Calcutta of my childhood was pristine, very white and virtually perfect. The Calcutta I know today as an old man is somewhat jaded, quite dilapidated and dirty.This however has not diminished my devotion to the city. Rather, the enchantment is further enhanced. I now love it more for what it is, rather than looking for what was. So, subsequent visits to the city of my birth have served as a reality check. I see the balance between the old and the new. The gracious Colonial facades loom large, and undeniably, the heart of the city pulsates and throbs virtually unchanged.The finer nuances of my city, now Kolkata, so lovingly revealed to me by my dear friend Dipali Bhattacharya, are yet to be captured on canvas. Perhaps in the near future, when I hope to exhibit them in the revered but also abused city of Kolkata..... The city where I don’t have to explain that my purchases are in a “thonga”, where that irritating traffic noise is a “phatphatia” and where your banyaan is my “ganji”!

Shakil Saigol2016

‘’The Sleep of a Hundred Years II Calcutta Unchanged’’ Belur MathAcrylic, Oil and Inks on Canvas 58 x 72 inches2016...

.

Artist Statement

After The Haul I2016 Acrylic, Oil and Inks on Canvas46 x 60 inches.... After The Haul II

2016 Acrylic, Oil and Inks on Canvas46 x 60 inches...

.

After The Haul III2016 Acrylic, Oil and Inks on Canvas45 x 70 inches....

Endless Afternoon I2016 Acrylic, Oil and Inks on Canvas50 x 74 inches....

Rajbari2016 Acrylic, Oil and Inks on Canvas40 x 57 inches...

.

AAmitabh Gupta Mansion North Calcutta2016 Acrylic, Oil and Inks on Canvas60 x 44.5 inches...

.

Maestro Satyajit Ray2016 Acrylic, Oil and Inks on Canvas57 x 65 inches....

preceding page

‘’Halcyon Days’’Apu, Abu and I, Triptych2016 Acrylic, Oil and Inks on Canvas118 x 55.5 inches....

Endless Afternoon II2016 Acrylic, Oil and Inks on Canvas54 x 78 inches....

I, Onlooker2016 Acrylic, Oil and Inks on Canvas58 x 128 inches....

To the Temple2016 Acrylic, Oil and Inks on Canvas60 x 40 inches...

.Old Calcutta2016 Acrylic, Oil and Inks on Canvas56.5 x 37 inches...

.

Hathgaari, Calcutta2016 Acrylic, Oil and Inks on Canvas37 x 69 inches....

Metro Monotony 2016 Acrylic, Oil and Inks on Canvas62 x 68 inches...

.

SHAkil Saigol

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2014 “TIME PAST, TIME PRESENT” Canvas Gallery, Karachi2013 “Still we are like that only” Khaas Art Gallery, Islamabad2012 “Almia Ye Hai Ke Main Zinda Hun” Canvas Gallery, Karachi2011 “Equus Quagga” Khaas Art Gallery, Islamabad2008 “Equus Quagga: The Ordinary Zebra” Drawing Room Gallery, Lahore2008 “Calcutta Revisited” Canvas Gallery, Karachi2006 “Khajuraho Revisited” Gallery Beyond, Mumbai2004 “ SurSundari” Canvas Gallery, Karachi1999 “Abrash” Air Gallery, London1995 “Kilms” Chawkandi Art Gallery, Karachi1991 “Private World” Lahore Art Gallery, Lahore

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2009 Two-person show with Afshar Malik, Canvas Gallery, Karachi2005 Harsh Goenka’s Art Camps, Mudh Island, Mumbai2005 “Humara Show,” Mumbai, India2004 Chawkandi Art Gallery, Karachi2003 Harsh Goenka’s Art Camps, Mudh Island, Mumbai2003 J.I’s Gallery, Karachi2003 National Art Exhibition, Lahore2002 J.I’s Gallery, Karachi2002 Chawkandi Art Gallery, Karachi2002 “Uraan Exhibition” Gulgee Museum, Karachi2001 Triennale, Sharjah Museum, Sharjah1999 Chawkandi Art Gallery, Karachi1996 7th National Exhibition of Visual Arts, PNCA, Islamabad

Shakil Saigol’s paintings are represented in various collections in Pakistan and in important collections abroad, notably in India, Britain, USA, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and the UAE.

“Thakore Bari” First Floor Balcony2016Acrylic, Oil and Inks on Canvas46 x 60 inches....

Shakil Saigol would like to thank the following for their support and help in making this show possible:

Rehana SaigolZishan Afzal KhanAlia Bilgrami

Text: Anirudh ChariDesign & Layout: Babar GullPhotography: Majyd BaygPrinter: TOPICAL Lahore, Pakistan (topical18@gmail.com)

House 1, Street 2, F-6/3, Islamabad, PakistanTel: +92 51 282 4391| khaasgallery@gmail.com | www.khaasgallery.com

© 2016 KHAAS GALLERYAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced/stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any other means without prior permission of Khaas Gallery.

House 1, Street 2, F-6/3,Islamabad, PakistanTel: +92 51 282 4391khaasgallery@gmail.comwww.khaasgallery.com