Muzaffar Ali to showcase his lesser-known artistic works at upcoming exhibition

Celebrated filmmaker Muzaffar Ali will showcase his lesser-known artistic side outside of cinema at an upcoming exhibition, featuring the director’s paintings, collages, sketches and designed objects.

The ‘Muzaffar Ali’ exhibition at Bikaner House here from January 11 will shed light on a variety of media that have kept the director and fashion designer busy beyond the world of movies.

Curated by scholar-author Uma Nair, the pioneering show by Masha Art will feature a comprehensive body of Ali’s works in the past four decades. (Also read: ‘Idam’, an exhibition for Malayali artists begins at Kochi-Muziris Biennale )

The show will also feature some large-scale paintings that Ali conceived and completed during the Covid-19 lockdown.

“My relationship with sketch-pen and brush, crayon and acrylic and oil is both organic and scientific. All my hazy graduation knowledge of geology, botany and chemistry creates subtle cerebral bridges of visual grammar. Today, they reflect my childlike ignorance and inquisitiveness. Yet they stand out in my art as I celebrate the itch in my hands to draw,” the 78-year-old said.

Ali, who debuted as a painter in 1970 in the erstwhile Bombay, is better known for having directed award-winning critically acclaimed films like “Gaman” (1978), “Umrao Jaan” (1981), and “Anjuman” (1986).

Nair, who spent a year curating the show, said that Ali’s works essay his “pronounced love for the earth and the spirit of man as a gentle soul”.

Besides a series on the Sufi mystic Rumi, the show will also feature collages and paintings that include landscapes and horses. The show will conclude on January 21.

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