WAQAS KHAN

These two years have been intense for the artist: he has exhibited in the most prestigious art fairs such as Art Basel, FIAC, Frieze London, Art Basel Hong Kong, Art Dubai, India Art Fair, Art Basel Miami and Art14 London; shown his work in multiple group shows in Vienna, New Delhi, Innsbruck, Madrid, Kraitchal, Kazan and Moscow; and he was shortlisted for the Jameel Prize 3. Furthermore, his work is now part of the permanent collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

His practice in these two years has evolved to bring to the viewer more exciting and endless, seemingly moving compositions that are now even more intricate and miniature but ever-growing massive scales.

The ink and gesture through the stroke are Waqas’ means of expression. A binary language in which the silence and the emptiness are so defining as ink. This dichotomy along with the small scale, transforms its own materiality to create a third dimension inscribed in the two dimensional paper, that shapes and clarifies a complex whole. The viewer becomes involved in a direct relationship with a work that reflects the abstract, pure thought inherent to the artist. Waqas’ paintings engage and do not give rise to obvious, elevating us to levels of sensations that are beyond what is evident. No dot, no line or mark drawn amongst the crowd of them that flood Khan’s work is superfluous. All contribute to form the perfect image of a social body and give meaning to it.

The exhibition opens with Breath of The Compassionate IV a work where the negative space is the protagonist. Inspired by the famous Islamic design formed by interlacing 8-point stars, Waqas gives a twist to this traditional arrangement to accommodate it to his own practice and technique.

The show continues with the works The Hole, 2014 and Untitled in green, 2014 where the artist works with new shapes and colour to achieve a greater sense of movement in its own third self-created dimensionality.

Lastly, among other bodies of work such as Interruption II, 2014, one of the most complete works by the artist in terms of technique; Waqas Khan will also present sixteen new compositions of his series Forming Spaces, delicate studies of forthcoming works and techniques. Waqas uses this small format to experiment and toy with his own strokes, achieving new designs and ways of intertwining the drawings that later he introduces into bigger scale works.