You who are my love and my life’s enemy too

There was a tragedy in Sialkot, Punjab, in August 2010, when two adolescents were murdered by vigilantes who were apparently in connivance with the police. Struck by this blunder revealing police corruption, the started a series of paintings on paper, You who are my love and my life’s enemy too, in which he expressed his reaction to this murder. At first glance the work appears to be a splash of blood like the one in this killing, but, close up, the composition reveals itself as meticulous floral motifs typical of the art of miniature painting which the artist teaches. This work has echoes in another piece which was presented at the 10th Biennale of Sharjah, Blessing upon the land of my love, in which he develops an installation in a similar modus operandi, this time referring to a suicide bombing that took place in the market the artist goes to. These distinctive works confront us with the same feeling the artist had confronted with such violence, here Imran Qureshi poetically attempts to find a way to expiate these violent deaths and suggest their impacts on the political and social situation in Pakistan.

Pakistani artist Imran Qureshi’s practice revives 16th century Mughal miniature painting. Qureshi’s work merges traditional motifs, symbols, and techniques with the visual language of abstraction to consider contemporary socio-political events affecting Pakistan and the world more broadly. Combining gestural abstraction with refined ornamental details, his practice shifts between figurative and abstract works on paper, monumental paintings, videos, and site-specific installations. Qureshi’s hybrid methodology often features gold-leaf and the color red as signature elements of his work, signaling the relationship between the celestial plane (immortality) and the human body (mortality).