Riffat Alvi is a calm and collected person. She doesn’t lose her cool even when her chauffeur drives her tiny car at breakneck speed and changes lanes unpredictably. She wears ‘not to worry’ kind of expressions as her fellow travellers curl their toes nervously.

Another quality of the woman who wears three hats is that she has no unkind word for anybody. Now the question, which three hats? She is first an artist, who uses different media effectively. She has been running an art gallery successfully for 29 years and, thirdly, she is a curator par excellence.

Born in a conservative middle-class family in 1948, Riffat, as she is commonly known, has six sisters and two brothers. Her mother tried to dissuade her from painting. “You will have to infuse life into these figures,” she would say sternly. When a piece of sculpture that she made and hid behind a bush in their garden was discovered, the lady of the house hit the ceiling. That perhaps was the reason why she didn’t pursue sculpture after she graduated from the Karachi School of Art (KSA) in 1973.

Wearing multiple hats of artist, curator and gallery administrator, Riffat Alvi excels in all of them

The artist recalls her days at the KSA with a glow in her eyes. Among the teachers she speaks fondly about is the country’s leading painter, Mansoor Rahi. “He would give us assignments and once we began our work, he would look at our canvas or paper from time to time. He would draw a circle with a pencil around what he would think was an error. But in order to help develop our thinking process, he would not tell his students what was wrong. He left us to realise it ourselves,” she recalls, adding that Rahi is a perfect gentleman and an inspiring teacher.

Alvi took to teaching initially but later accepted an offer to join the Sindh Small Industries Corporation which took her all over the province. It gave her the opportunity to interact with craftsmen and craftswomen and at the same time to experiment with earth pigments.

Bitten by wanderlust, she has done residency in the UK and visited several countries. She has exhibited her oeuvre at many solo exhibitions in Pakistan and participated in group shows in several countries. Her work is on display in six galleries outside Pakistan and her works of art are owned by private collectors in as many as 18 countries.

As I talk to her she is firmly ensconced in her office. Behind her is a small installation with birds in ceramics. Birds, she says, are symbols of peace. Next to them are three art works displayed horizontally. They show abstract figures in smoke on paper.

When asked, how did she start using smoke as a medium? She answers, “Once during a power failure I lighted a candle and a few minutes later discovered that the smoke had made a pattern on a paper which was protruding from a shelf above. That gave me the idea and since then I have started moving paper or white board over a burning candle or an incense stick. The black figures are symbols of violence.” The frame on the top has red colour with black smoke below it. Red, she reveals, symbolises bloodshed.

It’s heartening to see that the VM Art Gallery, Karachi, which is owned by the Rangoonwala Trust, has grown from a tunnel like room into a larger exhibition space and a hall where talks on art and artists are held occasionally. Alvi who has been the director of the not-for-profit gallery talks excitedly about the annual exhibition called ‘Emerging Talents’.

In its 14th year, the show attracts entries from different art schools in the country, ranging from Lahore’s NCA and Karachi’s Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture to an almost unheard of art school in Gujrat. The participants send two entries each. The three prize winning students get packages of art material. The works on display are put up on sale and a small sum is deducted from the sales proceeds to meet the expenses.

Her studio on the ground floor of her two-storey house is a fascinating place. You can see all kinds of art material and a number of art works, finished and yet to be finished, vying for space. “What is the material in these bottles?” I ask. “That is earth that I have collected from different countries, including Pakistan,” comes the answer from the widely travelled lady. They are of different colours and hues. Riffat uses them gainfully in her works of art.

No wonder they call her down to earth.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, July 3rd, 2016