Muzaffar Ali, the celebrated filmmaker, will exhibit his lesser-known artistic side outside of cinema in an upcoming exhibition, which will feature the director’s paintings, collages, sketches, and designed objects.
The ‘Muzaffar Ali’ exhibition, which opens on January 11 at Bikaner House, will shed light on a variety of media that have kept the director and fashion designer busy outside of the world of movies.
The groundbreaking exhibition by Masha Art, curated by scholar-author Uma Nair, will feature a comprehensive body of Ali’s works spanning four decades. The exhibition will also include some large-scale paintings created by Ali during the COVID-19 lockdown.
“My relationship with a sketch pen and a brush, a crayon and acrylic paint, and an oil painting is both organic and scientific. My hazy graduate knowledge of geology, botany, and chemistry lays the groundwork for subtle cerebral bridges of visual grammar. They now reflect my childlike curiosity and ignorance. Nonetheless, they stand out in my art as I celebrate the desire in my hands to draw ” the 78-year-old explained.
Ali, who began his career as a painter in 1970 in Bombay, is best known for directing award-winning, critically acclaimed films such as “Gaman” (1978), “Umrao Jaan” (1981), and “Anjuman” (1983). (1986).
Nair, who spent a year curating the show, said that Ali’s works reflect his “pronounced love for the earth and the spirit of man as a gentle soul.” Aside from a series on the Sufi mystic Rumi, the exhibition will also include collages and paintings of landscapes and horses. The show will end on January 21st.
