Qadri dimensions
Sohan Qadri would have turned eighty-years-old this year, and the latest showing of his works at Threshold Gallery is a kind of a homage to the man, his art and his commitments. Born in pre-partition Punjab, Qadri imbibed the syncretism and mystical traditions of the Sufis, the Kanaphata yogis, the Qalandars and the bhakta gurus.
These provided an abiding inspiration for his works even when he moved to the West. His oeuvre reverberates with the cadence of Indian spiritual traditions.
His recent paintings explore the nature of the undivided soul through colour. The blank expanse of the canvas-mind is soaked with deep colours: indigo blue, madder red, turmeric yellow, deep violet. Through the tonalities, he imbues his paintings with an inner light, letting it glow like an enlightened being in a forest of ignorance and confusion.
In his abstract work, the artist achieves volume and form through texture and colour density. A painting can have a feeling of ascent with a horizontal texture at the bottom and a vertical texture at the top. He also uses certain forms in an abstract way, such as a coiling rope to create a similar effect.
In fact, stitching, beading, use of tiny accessories enhances the concept of time and its fragmentation in Qadri’s paintings. The mystic’s way is to bridge time and space, so he weaves and stitches together the five elements, overcomes the sense organs, and rises above the illusory world. Qadri himself explained that, “narrowness of space has posed a great problem to me. Phenomenal life can hardly be lived within a few known dimensions. I avoid the distraction created by images. If one’s mind starts playing with the known, then the unknown will not be discovered.”
The planes and minimal patterns in Qadri’s works invoke this unknown, encouraging us to delve deeper into colour to uncover the universal and the inclusive.
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