HAVE I EVER OPPOSED YOU? NEW ART FROM INDIA AND PAKISTAN
18 March – 22 May 2010

Waseem Ahmed (b. 1976, Pakistan)


Waseem Ahmed, Untitled 2010, 39.7 x 25.8cm

The Taliban and other fundamentalist groups are not often the central subject of works of art. The extraordinary series of miniatures of Waseem Ahmed turn this traditional taboo upside-down.

Ahmed’s work is uncompromising, yet his treatment of this subject is particularly nuanced. Mullah figures are delicately painted like saints or princes, their features refined, their expressions filled with inner peace. Around them, a spiritual world of the anticipated paradise is symbolised by the Garden, enriched by delicate calligraphy. Figures of covered women are everywhere. It is a world of desire and fulfilment within the transient reality of life on earth, which is made up of mud and blood. Waseem Ahmed succeeds beautifully in presenting the collision of these two contradicting worlds. He presents the current compost of atrocities as a parallel psychological landscape to the Paradise that is so violently desired. This is a landscape of desolation and sublimation. The burqa becomes a camouflage for the suicide bomber; individual figures are turned into bullets, personifying fear.

Waseem Ahmed currently has a solo show at the Laurent Delaye Gallery, London and since 1993 has been included in group exhibitions in museums and galleries in Australia, Pakistan, India, Japan, UK, Greece, France, Nepal.


Waseem Ahmed, Untitled 2010, 309.6 x 25.8cm