KARACHI: It always yields noteworthy results when a painter pays tribute, or gets inspired by, a poet. On surface, both art forms — poetry and painting — have nothing in common. The former is to do with the arrangement of words making the reader use his imagination to create images through those words. The latter is about colour composition, strokes and lines conjuring pictures, appealing to the visual sense, enabling the viewer to see beyond the visible. But there is one thing common between the two: rhythm.

Shakil Saigol is a fantastic artist. His artworks strike the viewer with their textural opulence and compositional poise. His current exhibition titled Conference of Birds,which recently concluded at the Canvas Art Gallery, has a reference to the 12th century Persian poet Farid al Din Attar’s allegorical piece The Conference of Birds. Saigol, however, brings another name into the creative mix in his statement: William Shakespeare. He quotes a line from Hamlet, To thine own self be true. He explains: “My truth is my passion, my commitment and my compulsion to paint. I paint because I must. I paint what I feel and where my imagination takes me.”

He mustpaint. What is the subject that he paints? That’s where the scenario gets all the more interesting.

In total, there are ten exhibits on view. Saigol creates images of women and birds — flamingoes, at that. Now flamingoes have grace. So too the women that share the frame with the birds. The artist paints them in such a way [for example in ‘Trinity’ (oil and acrylics on canvas)] that the harmony between them, and their coexistence, proves mutually reinforcing. Wait. He doesn’t let the gist of the matter end there. The exhibition shimmers with a dash of mythology as well with a piece called ‘Leena and Crane AKA Leda and the Sawn’. The Leda and Swan story in Greek mythology isn’t one to rejoice. As a result, a touch of melancholia can also be felt in the artworks.

Having said that, at the core of it all lies the beautiful, aesthetically pleasing, characters that Saigol draws which move with a delectable visual rhythm. Nature’s munificence.

Published in Dawn, February 16th, 2025