Saqib’s paintings demonstrate the contrast of tarnished walls and closed doors with bright colors and butterfly wings. They represent the reluctance and oppression of a person and their potential to unlock change and progress by use of these wings. They speak of suppressed aspirations, while tactfully awakening nostalgic sentiments and wistful desires. His artwork analogous the cultural canvas of his Oriental and Pakistani land with influential strokes of modernism. Contrasting shades of spring and winter illustrate the universal human tendency to limit oneself; simultaneously melding the experiences of each individual.

Each rustic, antiquated wooden door gives way to the opportunities and decisions we embrace or cast off by opening and closing these doors. The doors appear to be aged and wasted, yet the bright colors he weaves in signify renewed possibilities.

His figures carry a stone exterior and a feeling of quiet regret; leading the mind to perceive an emotional state of containment and the obstacles we may, at times, unconsciously place in our lives. The ability to break free of these obstacles is always present, we need only to become aware and seize it. Each painting is sincerely extraordinary, triggering spectators to search deep within themselves and reawaken their spiritual and mortal potential.

Arich tapestry of textural paint applications and specific symbolist vocabulary emerged as the defining features of Saqib Mughul’s exhibition, ‘Darvazey’, shown at Koel Gallery, Karachi, recently. Essentially mix media exercises, the canvas surfaces, literally constructed/painted with pigment treatments, carried small templates/stencils of antiquated doors as heritage markers. By bringing an archaic eastern object in conversation with a western painterly sensibility the artist opted for a contemporary dialogue on issues related to tradition and modernity.

After graduating from the Karachi School of Art in 1997, Mughal established himself as an artist in Karachi. In 1999 he moved to the United States to further his career as a creative director and painter. On completing his visual art education in the US, he joined American art circles and currently works and lives in Miami, Florida. He has held several solo and group shows in both countries.

As a migrant artist Moghul’s art carries imprints of two diverse cultural environments. A childhood affiliation with his country of origin and later life association with his host country has enabled him to experience reality from diverse perspectives. Locating his work in a third space, a broader platform of universal values he voices his desires and aspirations that relate to new comprehensions and realisations.

The door/Darvazey symbol is his gateway to ‘here and there’ and everywhere and to facilitate this freedom to take flight, to imagine, dream and fantasise, he introduces the butterfly emblem as the other significant character in his aesthetic vocabulary. According to him, “The door symbol signifies ‘closed’ or ‘way to get out’. The butterfly implies change, innocence and freedom. Textures of old walls symbolise home.”

Transcending boundaries, the kind of closures inanimate doors can imply, on the wings of fleeting, mythic butterflies implies wondrous flights of imagination. But Mughul’s winged creatures are anchored to his oriental doors/Darvazey which are almost always closed and remain suspended in a dense network of closely configured strokes. The transition implied by the artist appears opaque and ponderous as if weighed down with the gravity of his reasoning. The embellished butterfly images are attractive, exotic and ornamental but remain motionless. As striking appendages they spotlight the door facades which emerge more as emblems of a glorious past than as portals of dynamic change.

The other striking feature of Mughal’s current show is his consistent focus on surface treatments in his paintings. Investigating the potentials inherent within the painting medium itself he manipulates the physicality of pigments to create an intriguing new range of textural surfaces. His canvases carpeted with a trajectory of linear encrusted effects stake their claim as an emotive expression. Minutely grafted in multiple colours or elegantly woven in monotone the textural and chromatic mixes ground him as a painter who is immersed in the process of painting.

For most Modernist painters the processes involved in the painting are of greater certainty and of greater meaning than the referential aspects of the painting and Moghul’s close engagement with materials also aligns with this stance. In most paintings his chromatic and textural ploys are dominant while his conceptual triggers take a backseat.

Exhibitions of migrant artists were once few and far between but with the rising profile of Pakistani art abroad the trend has changed. Artists in Diaspora are exhibiting much more frequently on home ground now and there should be a greater keenness to reclaim this brain drain. Their broader perspective, almost always carrying some reference to their initial homeland, adds more dimensions to the scale of Pakistani art. In this regard Moghul feels, “Living abroad and viewing turmoil in Pakistan creates complex feelings but distance does help one to put matters into perspective.”

Saqib paintings are thinking pieces and Saqib remains more a cerebral painter than merely an artist of skill and craft. His metaphysical aura indicates his search for the unanswered questions and their inadequate answers. His brush is dipped deep into the complexities of philosophy. His struggle as a young man, is to search for the meaning behind meaning. For him the visual inner context is more important then it’s visual reference. He has already mastered his craft but he is not been able to find the meaning of his being. That keeps him probing the inner darkness. This is a kind of soul search. He suffers in his paintings the agony of a poignant pain. Perhaps, he will have to walk many more miles to discover himself. It’s a lonely journey.

The key element of Saqib’s work is his strong compositions. and management of light which he handles with subtle skill.

He is questioning, probing, discussing. Problems are analyzed, issues are discussed giving a strange version where objective and subjective sensibilities mingle in an attempt to reach an answer. Yet the answer is not easy to grasp. He has used female figures to project the trauma of human existence highlighting surrealistic contradictions. He divides his canvases in two or more segments leaving a bigger chunk as against the elongated strip, a difficult exercise to maintain balance. Most of his paintings present a foggy scenario and an uncertainty prevails yet some are property lighted of hope perhaps.

Saqib Mughal’s paintings are full of duality – beginnings and endings; prospects and diminished hopes; power and pain. His paintings are doors and windows onto the world, doors that hold life behind them and doors that close life off. These doors, like Saqib’s butterflies, fish, birds, and other mythical creatures, are both physically and figuratively present in his work, giving way to a rich line of interpretation.

In Saqib’s work, earth tones give way to blazing reds, in the same way that blank walls will brush into a door, jutting out in low relief – small doors that Saqib has pasted onto his canvases. Take Curiosity, one of Saqib’s paintings.

At the same time, however, though the paintings may have their roots in Pakistan, they are universal, as all good art must be. Anyone looking upon one of Saqib’s canvases can take what they will from it. Butterflies and birds, those winged creatures, can unfold into a number of meanings to do with change, splendor, freedom, and growth. The texture too can illicit feelings of depth. These are thoroughly worked backdrops that give the impression of soil and jagged surface, sometimes mineral-rich, sometimes barren.