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I am not a teacher but an awakener.
(Robert Frost)
He tossed his pipes too hard to teach
A new-world song, far out of reach,
Time were changed from what they were:
Such pipes kept less of power to stir
They were pipes of pagan mirth,
And the world had found new terms of worth.
I wish to acknowledge the support of my friends and mentors:
Mushtaq Ahmed Yousufi
H.E Hussain Haqqani
Anwer Maqsood
Rashid Maqsood Hamidi
Marjorie Hussain
Dr. Enver Sajjad
Dr. Akber Naqvi
Tassaduq Sohail
Saleem Haidery
Zameer Rizvi
Qudoos Mirza
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Dr. Shafqat
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Iftikhar Arif
Murtaza Razvi
Acknowledgment
Hameed Haroon
Aqueel Hassan
Nageen Hayat
Mrs. Zohra Hussain
Sameera Raja
Salwat Ali
Mohsin Jaffery
Mr. Shabs
Peerzada Salman
Hassan Mansoor
Ashfaq Hussain
Ehfaz-ur-Rehman
M. F. Hussain
Anish Kapoor
And many other friends whom I am indebted to.
Very special thanks to Ambassador Hussain Haqqani and staff of Embassy of
Pakistan.
Many many thanks to my family, my friend and mentor, my mother Rabia Yasin,
my dearest friend my wife Nida and my universe, my sweet son Aabyan.
Message from the Ambassador
of Pakistan to The United States
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Shahid has portrayed his entire work as if it is an ongoing
dialogue – with self and society -- which draws its
inspiration from the community, local and global, as he
equally belongs to both. The greatness of his work thus lies
in its profound appeal to many different groups.
And because aesthetic experience is the most complete and
integrated of our responses to the world, it is heartening
to see the works of artists like Shahid who have become
ambassadors of peace and humanity. His genuine desire
to contribute to causes that he feels very strongly about
elevates him as an artist and human being.
Shahid Rassam’s use of symbolism and expressionist
realism is a genuine effort on his part to spread the
comforting message of peace and tolerance through this
powerful medium of expression.
I wish him every success in his artistic endeavors.
HUSAIN HAQQANI
February 2011, Washington D.C.
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s an artist Shahid Rassam has used his creative
impulse to promote peace and tolerance. Looking
at Shahid’s work it becomes evident that the artist
has used symbolism and metaphor as his medium of
expression and has used his experiences to create works
of art that are very much appreciated by art lovers and
those who have an eye for finer things in life.
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The Visual Poet
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sensitive, feeling heart, a brooding mind and a committed soul come together to
form the leitmotifs that are Shahid Rassam’s very own. They are then punctuated
with a master’s technique to put out reflections of an increasingly volatile society
that the artist lives in. In this world of wonderment, truth and purity are burdened with
strange bedfellows, who impose themselves on that which is beautiful and delicate to
create a sinister offspring. These are not recurring dreams of primitive behavior, some so
base that it hurts instantaneously, but a hall of mirrors in which the artist finds himself
standing, dumbfounded.
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Interpretations of the art at hand may vary from one culture to another, but to a Pakistani
there’s no mistaking the powerful symbols present in the current body of Rassam’s work
as a reflection of many prototypes, in all their crudity, that dog Pakistan today. The human
body, albeit distorted, is the wronged, yet pure and beautiful, woman. She is known for
her warm-clime fertility, like the land of the many gushing rivers that she hails from. Her
head in the form of a sunflower tells of the bountiful soil that refuses to let go of its virility,
standing as a testament to perseverance despite the odds stacked against her. In jest and
through body curvature she cries out that there’s many a life left in her —despite her
many tribulations.
Her tormentor is the mean, malevolent bull, now sporting a beard, with all its base
instincts that are all too in your face. The narrative moves on: the unnatural bedfellows
give birth to an equally absurd offspring, who appears in the form of an egg, of the Jurassic
Park variety, and which cannot wait to hatch. The palette then turns drastically solid: blues
and oranges, agony staring at you… the rest is gray like the unknown swathes of the shade
that bedevil a child in his deep sleep.
And now the props: Amidst this emerging landscape, the dark night is stripped of its stars
and the moon, La Luna, reflects the misery she sees down below, herself impregnated
with ‘who knows what anymore’. The saxophone emanating from the female body and
encompassing her soul, which once made music, will now likely echo with the loud cries
of extremism, death and holy war; the bearded bull now controls the instrument to put
it to his own, menacing use. Overtime, the fertile land too stops sprouting sunflower,
and becomes rigidly terse and parched; cactus rears its thorny head where once lush
abundance abounded. The night owl, the symbol of doom and gloom in traditional Eastern
lore, lords over the burning moonscape as it were — another muddled contradiction in
terms — as evident in the changing landscape that surrounds the lone artist.
Besides the acrylics on canvas, the mix-media newspaper and charcoal drawings also
speak of the phased tribulation of the fertile belle, and this is no Keatsian belle that
knew no mercy, but one that is the victim of those who are sans mercy — the depraved
and the evil.
Rassam’s imagery and the accompanying idiom are firmly rooted in the Eastern, particularly
Urdu, poetic tradition of which he is an ardent student. His visuals are the contemporary
The current body of Rassam’s work, thus, reflects the mighty contradictions in society that
he is up against, much like the poets before him, whom he adores and takes as his guides
and mentors in thought. It is an elegy in visuals, just like the classical Urdu poetic genre
of marsiya, the most poignant form in Urdu to register grief, give vent to anger against
injustice and to deconstruct all that is evil, anti-social and revolting to human dignity and
decent norms of civilized society. The beauty of the marsiya, like that of Rassam’s work,
lies in this very noble attempt at deconstructing the evil, which is sought in order to restore
and heal that which is pure, beautiful and sublime in life — thus, what better symbol to
use than a woman’s bosom to depict all that purity, beauty and sublimity?
The message of hope that shines through is this: ‘We’ve been there before, and defeated
the demonic bulls that have tried to trample our soul; it is they who vanish; not we, nor
our fertile land that is the belle that sings and dances like the sunflower.’
Murtaza Razvi
December 2010, Karachi
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counterfoils of the agony depicted by classical Urdu poets who documented very
poignantly the horrors wrought on society by alien invaders, including the British, the loss
of kingdom to alien rule, which rendered the local nobility destitute. They were poets like
Mir Taqi Mir, who wrote in the aftermath of the sack of Mughal Delhi by the Afghan warrior,
Ahmad Shah Abdali, in 1748; or Ghalib, who lamented over the misfortunes that stemmed
from the 1857 Sepoys’ Rebellion which was christened as the War of Independence by
Indian nationalists, or even the 20th century poet, Iqbal, who keenly eyed a post-colonial
setup but worried about the ill-preparedness of Muslims to cope with the new, emerging
modern world. Closer to our own time, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Ahmed Faraz, Habib Jalib and
Jaun Elia in Pakistan wrote heartrending poems, giving vent to the grief they suffered
as sensitive practitioners of their own muses, be it on account of breakdown of human
relationships and post-industrial alienation of the human soul or the squeezing of civil
society by the tyranny of dictatorial rule, which eventually gave birth to the twin scourge
of intolerance and extremism that is exercised in the name of religion today.
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Through the Eyes of an Artist
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n my capacity as an art journalist for the country’s leading daily newspaper, the Dawn, I have had
occasion to view Shahid Rassam’s work in art exhibitions since he began to show his work in Karachi in
the early ’90s. At that time he painted classical oriental subjects that appeared to have stepped out of
the ‘Arabian Nights,’ curvaceous beauties in marble palaces, markets of legend with their beautiful, captive
subjects on display and scenes from the Harems of eastern rulers. In these works Rassam assimilated
design and architectural elements, creating narrative atmosphere with a fine eye for form and colour. I was
privileged to have the opportunity to get to know him and to observe with interest his progress as an artist.
During this period I witnessed his success as the recipient in several awards for art.
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On the strength of his potential Rassam was awarded a British Council Scholarship to St. Martin’s School
of Art, London, and there the subject and style of his work dramatically changed. In London he visited
galleries and concerts and he developed a love of ballet finding the music and movements entrancing.
He regularly queued for the students seats and made friends who shared his interests. When time came
to work on a thesis, Rassam chose ‘Ballet Movements’ as his subjects leaving the world of myths and
opulence far behind.
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On his return to Karachi, the artist mounted an exhibition of paintings in 2002; it was titled: ‘Life is a
Dome of Many Coloured Glass,’ and raised issues of vulnerable, exploited women in images rendered in a
heavily impasto, dramatic style. He used interesting forms to express his viewpoint and stated: ‘the artist
raises issues he does not offer solutions.’ His work continued to expand and he evolved an allegorical
and figurative aesthetic language to research and communicates his experience of universal issues. He
continued to work for exhibition and to contribute to group events abroad while regularly conducting
workshops on art for universities in the UAE that at that time had no regular art syllabus. In Karachi he
collaborated with the Arts Council to mount various programmes on art lectures and exhibitions.
Always moving forward, Rassam began to express his views in the third dimension, moulding columns
that fused a modern contemporary viewpoint with traces of a rich legacy. These were exhibited in UAE
to acclaim. In the recent development of the symbolic sunflower series, the artist fragments his subject
into diffused abstraction softening the distortion in his work with glimpses of limbs, traces of femininity
and the solace of nature. Using layers of paint to create speckled, multi coloured textures he covers entire
surfaces with a complex organization of mixed media, acrylic and oil compositions continuing the sensuous
approach to the texture and colour of his paint. What one discovers in Shahid Rassam’s recent work is that
it appears to be as much about contemplation as experience; life viewed by an empathetic philosopher.
Though often symbolizing a darker side of life, yet the overall impression evokes a feeling of compassion
for the fragility of life and human existence. The dramatic imagery discovers the subjects in a state of
metamorphosis and dominated by the sunflower turning towards the sun by day and spent by the darkness
of night. Ultimately it appears that Rassam’s work is no longer addressed by rage at the hopelessness of
society in general, but now the intimate the observations of an on-looker, musing on the natural follies of
mankind.
Marjorie Husain
December 2010, Karachi
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trong and vibrating lines, colours, textures and
intelligently crafty use of space, emerging in shapes
reflecting human misery through human female
which seems to be the ultimate human destiny but
for one reservation-THE SUNFLOWER, mirror of light,
warmth, energy, life and hope.
Shahid Rassam has used effectively and very artistically
symbolism to convey his anger at the fanatic intolerance,
violence and oppression of women prevalent in our
society and the world. Every symbol has a story of its
own. He gathers hundreds of stories in a painting. Shahid
paints whatever he wants to say about the status of
women and society.
It is up to the viewers and their level of understanding
the artistic symbols and the strong social and political
message that the artist is sending through his works. The
more educated you are, the more you will be enjoying.
I like Shahid Rassam’s technique and style, which are
entirely his own.
Tassaduq Sohail
June 15, 2007
(Internationally known painter of Pakistan) Like always, Shahid will exhaust his present theme. We
are waiting for your new probes, Shahid!
Dr. Enver Sajjad
August 20, 2004
(Painter, Writer and Dramatist)
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bout 400 years back in Europe symbolism became
an important element in art to counter Church’s
stranglehold on any artistic and literary expression,
which it deemed blasphemous. Thus symbolism became
an integral part of art and evolved into kind of a movement
in art. Similar religious extremist stranglehold exists in
Pakistan. Unfortunately our critics are far away from the
reality and history.
To me Shahid Rassam’s paintings are poems in colour set
to music. He is not afraid of treading unknown paths and
has always taken risks of experimentation in techniques,
trying to capture human passions passionately, holding
the throbbing pulse of his brush.
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hahid Rassam’s endeavour over ten years to evolve
a personal imagery now revolves around the human
and desire predicaments faced by women.
He structures his imagery in semi figurative perception
creating optical spaces with interplay of vertical and
horizontal planes in which his texture play a dominant
role.
He has arrived at definitive imagery which unfolds enough
opportunity for him to further experiment in carrying his
aesthetic problems to the next stage in the evolution of
his concept.
Ali Imam (late)
December 2001
(Legendary painter of Pakistan)
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Vincent van Gogh once said: “I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.”
Perhaps by the same token my dreams are my paintings which turn into reality
and sometimes turn reality into dreams. When they go through a creative journey
to become a painting, you can see my beloved in it as well as the villain.
The story of my paintings has a beloved who was the beloved of someone else in
the 19th century – the darling of a creative individual who was madly in love with
her, therefore immortalized her. After 150 years this beloved turns another artist
into her admirer and a new account unfolds.
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This story begins with a dream in which there is a beautiful princess who after
some time assumes the form of a ballet dancer. When she dances the entire world
gets mesmerized. Colors start to speak and silence starts to whisper. This crazy girl
wins over the world not with her art, but with her body.
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So the tale titled ‘The Oldest Profession’ kicks off from here. It also has many
other faces in it. On occasion it exposes the monster within man and there are
instants when it reveals the dancing beauty. Actually this beloved is a villain
disguised as a beautiful creature.
The creature then appears in the shape of newsprint drawings on business and
economics pages and stands before a fiend, a wrongdoer called materialism,
raising a pertinent question. This question begets a lot of other questions.
And wearing the oldest profession’s crown this dancer makes her lover meet some
new characters which congregate in big numbers. The most startling character
among them is the one known as the worshipper. He has apparently immersed
himself in the act of praying to God, but when I see him up close I get disturbed.
That worshipper in reality is a bull -- and we all live in a china shop. He has a
beard and the most ominous feature of his being is his eyes. He is always seen
prostrating before God but his Imam, his spiritual leader, is the currency note, and
he does not discriminate between dollar, euro or yuan. This story contains a great
many dream-like questions and becomes the tale of sinners and worshippers.
Now you may have guessed the love for the beloved, this love is my act of creation
and the beloved is the sunflower. It has been going on for ages.
Vincent and I fell in love with the same beloved, the sunflower.
She is the beloved who has been showing us “the world of reality as well as the
metaphorical world.”
Somewhere down the line, the 21st century has set in. When I look back at things
it seems like yesterday. I see that Vincent is still standing in the fields gazing at
the sun and then looking at the sunflower (our mutual beloved). At dusk he
encounters some sad, bleary-eyed children who work in the coalmines and now
themselves look like pieces of coal. However, their cheeks are awash with tears
and the tears in their eyes ask him why they hardly get to eat potatoes.
(Love’s wrath has clean-swept my hearth
Sans a desire-to-create I own nothing)
(Ghalib)
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I get up from there and come to my alter ego, Shahid, who like always gets bored
with dreams, paintings, characters and tears. His criticism makes me tread on a
path that leads to distinguished art collectors and reputed galleries, museums and
auction houses. Shahid’s criticism begins with the phrase ‘style of the artist’ and
he often asks me, “When will your beloved leave you? Till when are you going to
see these frivolous characters? When will your art get rid of that dream and be
able to see the reality of the world? When will you have your own style?” And I
always fail to tell him that the answer to his questions is: “never”. My beloved and
my immersion in work is my love, which is also my art, and which is also what my
guru Pablo had taught me. According to him: “God is really only another artist.
He created the sky, giraffes, elephants and the cats. He has no real style. He just
goes on trying other things.”
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SHAHID RASSAM
February 2011, Toronto
Profile of Shahid Rassam
EDUCATION
1994-95
1998 1999 M.Sc. Geology, University of Karachi
M.A. Urdu Literature, University of Karachi
Awarded scholarship by the British Council at St. Martin College of Arts
London
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EXHIBITIONS
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2011
2011
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
2000
1999
1999
1998
1997
1997
1996
1996
1996
1994
1991-92 Solo exhibition Embassay of Pakistan, Washington D.C.
Live Painting demonstration on a unique musical composition, painting
auctioned, Living art center, Toronto, Canada
Solo Exhibition at Canvas Art Gallery. Karachi
Solo Exhibition at Bagash Art Gallery, Dubai.
Exhibition of mural Painting at Arts Council, Karachi
Participated in a group exhibition, Rome, Italy
Solo Exhibition at Chawkandi Art Gallery, Karachi
Solo Exhibition at Nomad Art Gallery, Islamabad
Participated in a group exhibition, Boston, USA
Solo exhibition at Momart Art Gallery, Karachi
Participated in a group exhibition of Art and Liberty in France, Belgium,
Scotland
Solo exhibition at Abu Dhabi Culture Foundation, UAE
Solo exhibition at UAE University of Al-ain
Solo exhibition at Abu Dhabi Culture Foundation, UAE
Participated in a group exhibition at St. Martin College of Arts London
Solo exhibition at Sheraton Hotel Dubai, UAE
Group exhibition J.N.T.U. College of Arts Hyderabad, Daccan, India
Solo exhibition Taj Gallery Mumbai, India
Solo exhibition at Banh Belli project exhibition PNCA, Islamabad
Solo exhibition at Banh Belli project exhibition Alhamra Arts Council Lahore,
Solo exhibition at Banh Belli project exhibition Mehran Arts Council
Mitthi, Thar
Solo exhibition at Arts Council of Pakistan, Karachi
Solo exhibition University of Karachi
AWARDS
2000 1996 1995 1994
1991
Artist of the year, UAE University Al-ain
Quaid-e-Azam youth award
Quaid-e-Azam academy award
Quaid-e-Azam portrait first prize
Best artist award University of Karachi
COMMISSIONED WORK
• Produced commissioned work for over hundreds of clients from all over the
world among these are 40 paintings to portray the life and culture of Thar desert
commissioned by Banh Belli and UNICEF.
• Buzkushi 20 x 9.5 feet mural commissioned by Government of Pakistan.
• Mural 10 x 20 feet commissioned by an individual art collector in Dubai.
• One oil painting auctioned for cancer patients at US$ 15,000.
• 10 paintings commissioned by the private department of Sheikh Zayed including
his own portrait for the palace.
• Mural Painting auctioned for Earth quake victims US $ 20,000.
MEMBERSHIPS
AGO, Art Gallery Of Ontario,
French Art Society, Art and Liberty UNESCO, AIAP
Visiting Lecturer in UAE University Al-ain
British Alumni Association Pakistan
RASSAM STUDIO OF ART
Tell:
CANADA & USA: 001-647-969-8416, 416-917-4301
UK:
0044-7960729655
UAE:
00971-50-3218085, 4573618
PAK:
0092-300-2577411, 334-3080308
Email:
shahid_rassam@yahoo.com
shahid_rassam@hotmail.com
www.shahidrassam.com
website:
photograph of works & potraits:
Khalid Rassam, Mehmood Akhter
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• Contributed with many paintings to raise funds for charitable causes.
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Year 2010, Acrylic on Canvas I 30” x 36”
Year 2010, Acrylic on Canvas I 30” x 36”
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Year 2010, Acrylic on Canvas I 30” x 36”
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Year 2010, Acrylic on Canvas I 40” x 50”
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Year 2010, Acrylic on Canvas I 30” x 36”
Year 2010, Acrylic on Canvas I 30” x 36”
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Year 2010, Acrylic on Canvas I 30” x 36”
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Year 2007, Newsprint with Charcoal I 24” x 30”
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Year 2009, Acrylic on Canvas I 24” x 24”
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Year 2010, Acrylic on Canvas I 30” x 36”
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Year 2010, Acrylic on Canvas I 30” x 36”
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Year 2001, Joan Alia (Great Urdu Poet) Mixed Media on Canvas I 24” x 30”
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Year 2005, Worshippers Mixed Media on Canvas I 7 x 15ft
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Year 2009, Acrylic on Canvas I 30” x 36”
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Year 2010, Acrylic on Canvas I 30” x 36”
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Year 2007, Newsprint with Charcoal I 24” x 30”
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Year 2009, Acrylic on Canvas I 30” x 36”
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Year 2008, News Print with Charcoal I 22” x 28”
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Year 2009, Acrylic on Canvas I 40” x 50”
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Year 2009, Acrylic on Canvas I 22” x 24”
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Year 2010, Acrylic on Canvas I 30” x 36”
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Year 2009, Acrylic on Canvas I 24” x 24”
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Year 2009, Acrylic on Canvas I 30” x 36”
Year 2010, Acrylic on Canvas I 30” x 36”
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Year 2009, Acrylic on Canvas I 22” x 24”
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Year 2010, Acrylic on Canvas I 40” x 50”
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Year 2010, Acrylic on Canvas I 30” x 36”
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Year 2010, Acrylic on Canvas I 30” x 36”
Year 2009, Acrylic on Canvas I 24” x 36”
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Year 2010, Acrylic on Canvas I 30” x 36”
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Year 2007, Newsprint with Charcoal I 24” x 30”
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Year 2008, Whirling Dervaish, Gunmetal I 3ft high
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Year 2007, Bronz and Gunmetal I 3ft high
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Year 2008, Raqsay Zanjeer (dance in chain) Bronz I 3ft high
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Year 2008, Come and Cast the first Stone Gunmetal I 3ft high
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Thine emulous fond flowers are dead, too,
And the daft sun-assaulter, he
That frightened thee so oft, is fled or dead;
Save only me
(Nor is it sad to thee!)
Save only me
There is none left to mourn thee in the fields..
I Worshippers and Sinners
(ROBERT FROST)
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