Nostalgic Impressions

K H A L I D K H A N - K A AY

K H A L I D K H A N - K A AY Khalid Khan, also known as Kaay, is an acclaimed artist who has to his credit solo painting exhibitions in the Germany, and Pakistan. His work has been displayed in many European countries including France, Germany, Spain, and the UK. His work also regularly featured by Rebecca Wilson, a Chief Curator and a VP at Saatchi Art and former Director at Saatchi Gallery, London.

In 1988 Kaay graduated in fine arts from a renowned Arts college in Karachi and soon began his career as a graphic designer. After his second solo painting exhibition in 1993 he got an opportunity to visit London. Having fallen in love with the city, he decided to make London his home and returned in 1995 to realize this dream. Here he studied media production and computer graphics.

His career took him to Germany next where he spent 7 years working as a creative director in an advertising agency. However, his love for the city of London did not diminish. He followed his heart and returned to London and that is where he resides now.

Kaay’s passion for art never faded and for the last ten years his main focus has been painting.

THE RETURN OF THE ARTIST: KHALID KHAN

by Marjorie Husain An exhibition of paintings by Khalid Khan, known in art circles as Kaay, showed great versatility mounted at the Epic Gallery Karachi. Kaay, who graduated from the Karachi School of art in 1988, has lived abroad in Germany for several years and now resides in London where he runs his studio and raises his family. Through the years his passion for art remained a positive factor of his life and his work has been shown in exhibitions mounted in countries east and west.

Meeting the artist he spoke of his student days in Karachi with respect and affection for his early art teachers. Living abroad for years he combined his art with the profession of creative director, advertising, but for the past ten years, appreciation for his art has allowed him to focus painting only.

Working with acrylic media on large canvases, people are primarily the subject of his work, but he also expresses current exhibition includes a number of nonfigurative artworks, life-paintings and city landscapes. In each of the genres the artist portrayed, the audience was aware of his skillful mastery of the subject and his media.

Several Abstract artworks displayed, passionately communicated the freedom of expression in vibrant colouration and movement, details that characterizes the innovative aesthetic of the artist’s singular idiom.

Kaay related that much of his works demanded by collectors abroad are the nude studies which define infinity of meaning. Life drawings have for centuries been a classic subject in art, the perfect forms of athletes in ancient Greece immortalized through their art. To artists of history, the mind and body of the subject were connected. In the figure studies of Kaay, one discovers the artist creates the mood of the sitter, and weaves a story of his/her existence with the textures and changing moods and colours of the canvas background.

The third subject chosen by Kaay was considerably moving. It was the personal expression that revealed the artist’s memories of the Karachi he knew - one that no longer exists. The simplicity and depth of Kaay’s nostalgia was combined with a sense of energy and tranquility emerging from the crowded lanes and streets. There one viewed the narrow streets that made up a remarkable place where one bought books; areas filled with people enjoying a street breakfast, and the general busy hubbub of the town painted in a spontaneous, highly personal approach. In these intuitive paintings, the artist places transparent, outlined boxes covering the places that today exist in his thoughts and memories only and infused with a sense of tenderness and protection.

A R T I S T ’ S S TAT E M E N T My paintings are the result of an OERB (Obsessive Experimental & Restless Behaviour). Due to my restless nature I work simultaneously in different styles and subject. Perhaps I don’t have a particular style or maybe I am still searching for it ……..or maybe I just enjoying the journey towards the unknown. I don’t know what I want but I am quite sure what I don’t want. I strongly feel that a painting should depict an artist not a style.

EXHIBITIONS 1990 1991 1992 1993 2001 2003 2005 2009 2016 2016 2017

Group exhibition at American Consulate, Karachi Solo exhibition at Gallery 122, Karachi Group exhibition at Indus Gallery, Karachi Solo exhibition at Gallery 122, Karachi Solo exhibition at Werkstatt fur Kunst und Design, Germany Solo exhibition at Hoxter Kunstzentrum, Germany Group exhibition at Stadt Museum Warburg, Warburg, Germany Group exhibition at New Cross Art, London, UK Solo exhibition at Epic Gallery, Karachi Group exhibition at GX Gallery, London (currently featured artist) Group exhibition at Highgate contemporary art, London

Title: Chingchee Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Size: 27.5” x 31.5”

Title: Old Man Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Size: 29” x 25”

Title: Anarkali 3 Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Size: 19.5” x 46.5”

Title: anarkali 2 Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Size: 23.5” x 27.5”

Title: Anarkali 1 Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Size: 35.5” x 27.5”

Title: An Evening Break Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Size: 60.5” x 38”

Title: Dehligate Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Size: 28.5” x 21.5”

Title: Dholwala Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Size: 29.5” x 37.5”

Title: Face 1 Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Size: 12” x 11.75”

Title: Face 2 Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Size: 12” x 11.75”

Title: Ferozepur Road Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Size: 60.5” x 52.75”

Title: Gawalmandi Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Size: 31.5” x 27.5”

Title: Godown at Lahore Station Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Size: 28.5” x 21.5”

Title: Huqa Maker Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Size: 27.5” x 31.5”

Title: lohari gate Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Size: 40.5” x 59.5”

Title: Maalang Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Size: 28.5” x 21.5”

Title: Naulakha-Lahore Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Size: 59” x 57”

Title: Old Anarkali Lahore Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Size: 43.5” x 28.5”

Title: Old face 1 Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Size: 29” x 35.5”

Title: Old face 2 Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Size: 29” x 35.5”

Title: Old face 3 Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Size: 29” x 35.5”

Title: old lahore Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Size: 23.5” x 27.5”

Title: Qulli Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Size: 28.5” x 21.5”

Title: railway-station Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Size: 35.5” x 27.5”

Title: Shahi Mohallah 1 Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Size: 27.5” x 31.5”

Title: Shahi Mohallah 2 Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Size: 59” x 39.5”

Title: Shrineof Syed Suf Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Size: 27.5” x 31.5”

Title: street-seller Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Size: 29.5” x 38.25”

Title: Wazir Khan Mosque 3 Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Size: 35.5” x 27.5”

Title:Wazir Khan Mosque 2 Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Size: 37.5” x 46.5”

Title: Wazir Khan Mosque 1 Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Size: 59” x 59”

ejazartgallery@yahoo.com www.ejazartgallery.com ejazartgalleries Venue: 79-B/1,off M.M. Alam Road, Gulberg III, Lahore, Pakistan. Cell: +92 300 8447748, Ph: 042-35718038, 35762784