Jhaveri Contemporary: Ali Kazim

11 May-27 May 2023

Ali Kazim, Untitled (Bird Hunter V), 2022. Credit: Courtesy of the Artist and Jhaveri Contemporary

Overview

Jhaveri Contemporary, presents The Weight of Blue, a solo show by Ali Kazim. The colour blue – French ultramarine, cobalt, indigo – unites the works across this exhibition. Blue is the colour of the sky and water, of vastness and longing. It is associated with melancholy too, and is a metaphor for the spiritual. Floating against unmodulated backgrounds, and saturated with thin layers of watercolour wash, Kazim's portraits are a tour de force of emotion.

Ali Kazim (b.1979, Pattoki. Lives and works in Lahore) creates layered, textured watercolours and ink drawings, primarily of desolate landscapes and figures in isolation. His meticulous brushwork draws upon miniature painting techniques, capturing the finest details, for instance individual strands of hair. Kazim treats landscapes with the same forensic finesse and considers the ancient civilisations that once flourished in Pakistan. Deploying an archaeological approach, he documents ruins and uses clay to create objects seemingly excavated from long-buried cities.

Artists