Meeting Irfan Hakim, a sculptor who is happy living at his own pace and in his own space was an opportunity to remind myself that life does not need to be a race. Irfan, after graduating from Hunerkada College of Visual and Performing Arts is currently teaching sculpture at the National College of the Arts in Rawalpindi. I got interested in his art when I attended his solo exhibition a few years ago at Khas Art Gallery, Islamabad. Other than the uniqueness of his medium, he was sculpting with stones and wires, what really fascinated me about his work was his subject. The show was titled, ‘Larvae’ and featured a collection of Irfan Hakim’s sculpted installations, all in the forms of different insects, bugs, and beetles.
A garage studio is where Irfan spends most of his time and does what he loves doing – exploring forms. “Nature intrigues me a lot. It has so many shapes and forms and everyday objects such as plants and animals present such wondrous collection of forms that unfortunately we never pause to notice. Each animal, large or small has so much details. Mechanics of movement are so complex yet perfect that I cannot help but be immersed in this obsession of recreating them through my art using objects and materials that I find lying around me wasted and neglected,” reflects Hakim. His studio is full of broken machines, pipes, nuts, bolts, heaps of wire, and other random objects he has been collecting for years.
The highlight of our discussion was when a crow came and perched itself on a nearby wall and started cawing. Irfan excused himself, took out a half fried egg from a folded newspaper, and fed the yolk to the crow as if it was a domesticated pet. These days Irfan is working on developing a series of metallic birds
The highlight of our discussion was when a crow came and perched itself on a nearby wall and started cawing. Irfan excused himself, took out a half fried egg from a folded newspaper, and fed the yolk to the crow as if it was a domesticated pet. These days Irfan is working on developing a series of metallic birds. The crow actually shows up every day at a set time to get his day’s treat and give the artist an opportunity to study its anatomy.”It has taken me months to make this bird comfortable with letting me observe it from such close quarters. Sculpting involves engineering, metallurgy, architecture, design and drawing. I start by drawing multiple sketches of an object and once I have explored it from all sides and dimensions, I start modelling it in a three dimensional medium. I like to experiment with scale and challenge the normal scale of objects by making them larger or smaller than they are generally present in nature.” The multidimensionality of sculpture lets Hakim explore, experiment, and define new frontiers in material, form and expression.
Hakim’s innovative approach and meticulous attention to detail is something that his students find the most inspiring. “I see students come to art school with a lot of passion but unfortunately as they are introduced to various disciplines, which by the way is equally important, they get bogged down by more commercial pursuits.
We have a student in architecture who is perhaps more suited to pursue sculpture. He is very talented and has a lot of passion for sculpture but since studying architecture offers him a more lucrative professional prospect, he feels pressured to adopt that. I hope his quest for creating art survives. I am happy with the way I have modelled my own life after my passion. I come from a family of professionals. My father would’ve preferred that I be an engineer but I always knew that my heart was in art. I feel one has to be happy with less in terms of material gains if one wants to prioritise his or her passion over material gains with a belief that artistic merit does get noticed sooner or later,” says Hakim.
“I spend a lot of time studying my subjects. There is always something or the other that keeps me absorbed. I am also working on exploring the form of musical instruments. I am trying to experiment with hollow spaces, vessels and containers and how sound resonates with it,” Hakim shares while talking about what is keeping him occupied these days. “I am studying the traditional musical instruments that were carved for centuries with a lot of reverence and mastery but are now becoming extinct. I want to revive them or save their specimen for generations to come so this heritage is not all lost due to neglect. I also play a stringed instrument that I am fine tuning these days.” He plays these stringed instruments and spends hours practising the different sounds. “This also helps me communicate with the birds. There is a koel that lives behind this building on a tree. Whenever I play music in the morning, it always responds and we talk to each other for hours.”
Irfan Hakim’s installation at the new Islamabad Gandhara International airport is a display of his command over expression and skill. The other artists whose work is displayed at the landmark airport, carefully selected and curated by the very capable Noorjehan Bilgrami, include Amin Gulgee, Imran Qureshi, Aisha Khalid, besides displays of master craftsmen of Naqashi, Kashikari, Chittarkari, woodwork and tile work from across the country. Irfan used a brass sheet to hammer a group of over three dozen Ababeel birds in flight hung from the ceiling, displayed perfectly against the backdrop of the airport. Irfan began this work by methodically hammering and texturing minutest details on each bird, each different from the others and fashioned by hand. After cutting, hammering, joining and polishing, the birds finally took flight and symbolise voyages to come for passengers at the largest international airport in Pakistan.
“Art must be given its place in public spaces. Plastic arts such as sculpture, ceramics, or pottery have been part of our culture for centuries. We cannot divorce ourselves from this legacy. While paintings have been patronised by individual art enthusiasts for generations, three dimensional art needs institutional patronage because it needs specialised spaces for projecting its true splendour. This is an additional challenge in an already constrained environment,” Hakim concludes.
The writer is a development communication specialist and a documentary filmmaker from Islamabad. He Tweets @hhaarroonn and can be reached at [email protected]