Boundaries
terracotta miniature bricks, water color and rubber solution
58.42x12.7x1.27 cm
2014
Nothing is readable on the wall. No single word is complete and readable.
Noor Ali Chagani’s career took off as a miniature artist. He picked up bricks as his subject for various reasons. The cuboid developed with each work he created, from painting to physically sizing it down maintaining its original ratio. Brick has an interesting phenomenon to it, the malleable clay is taken from the suburbs and transformed into a hard block that later on defines who we are, piled up to create walls, then a structure, then a space, then a territory, and finally history. The indigenous building block defines our peripheries that narrate our lives and the society we live in.
Chagani’s work revolves around his personal experiences, coming from a broken family, absence of home and his constant struggle to have a unit of his dreams. His work is simply about a common-man, he talks about his life, his social and cultural beliefs, his life long dreams, fears and isolation. The work is an amalgamation of these concepts as well as his personal expression and experiences. Transition of miniature painter’s thoughts into a three-dimensional reality is sustaining the unrealistic reality to own the desired structure.
Noor Ali did his BFA from National College of Arts and works extensively from his Lahore studio, exhibiting in different parts of the world.
Image Courtesy | Noor Ali Chagani