Ghulam Hussain, a contemporary artist from Hyderabad, exhibited his recent collection at the Satrang Gallery in Islamabad.

The collection used the works of the Dutch artist, Piet Mondrian, as backdrops, against which he wove complex patterns out of thin strips of wasli. Known for integrating art with craft, Dawn sat down with Hussain to learn a bit more about his work.

Q: What inspired this collection?

A: My inspiration has been Piet Mondrian. When I went to New York I saw Mondrian’s painting in reality and I fell in love. I realised that what I weave, and the basic patterns I make, already contain Piet Mondrian. His work is with squares and rectangles and when I weave I produce squares and rectangles too.

Then there was the merging of high craft and low craft – the coming together of painting and miniatures, art and craft.

Looking at his work I had an epiphany that his was the launching pad for my work. I decided that it was important to remember Mondrian and to hold a dialogue with the founder of modern art.

Q: What was it like, incorporating Mondrian into your work?

A.: I researched each of his drawings in great depth for almost four months – where I have broken his paintings down to their core elements on a grid. I needed to see why and how he placed a particular shape where he did. When I started to break down his paintings to replicate them I realised how precise every element was, how exact his measurements were. In Mondrian’s work you cannot ignore even a millimetre – it throws the entire composition off.

Q: How has your work evolved and what are you working on now?

A: My style draws from the ancestral profession of my family, as we weave date tree chittai (floor mats), something that is not made anywhere but in Sindh.

And I have been playing with basic colours and shapes for four years. For my first solo show I had placed tables in the gallery so that older people could sit and draw as they used to in school. The idea was that they reminisce and go back into the memories of childhood. I kept loads of colours for them and geometrical shapes, much like what children get in kindergarten.

Now, however, I am not finished with Mondrian! I am working on the drawings of his famous painting Broadway Boogie Woogie, but I haven’t completed it yet.

Published in Dawn, December 10th, 2015