Retracing the Steps of a Sufi Poet: An Artist Embraces Extreme Conditions

When working in his performance painting series, Azam had to grapple with difficulties presented by lack of gravity and acute cold. “I couldn't use paint in Zero Gravity as it would have floated so, I ended up using oil sticks. For Antarctica, we had to make special anti-freezing paints, which I tested in the freezers of the Billingsgate fish market prior to the trip.” He found it fascinating that the myriad shades of white in Antarctica gave him a different perspective on color, and was intrigued that the scientists at the Russian base in Antarctica “openly embraced what I was doing.” 

Born in Jhelum, Pakistan in 1963, Azam moved to London with his parents in 1970. A luminary in the art world since the 1980s, Azam has a new series of large scale abstract paintings at the Saatchi Gallery that were also created in a unique and challenging location. The exhibition, Nasser Azam: Saiful Malook, runs May 30 to June 10. Inspired by the Sufi saint and poet Mian Muhammad Bakhsh (1830-1907), whose poetic fantasy epic made Lake Saiful Malook famous, Azam visited the lake high in the Pakistani mountains to create his new series. Azam, born in the same city as Bakhsh, explores ancestral connections in Saiful Malook. “This series is about going back to my roots to create art,” he says, rather than directly interpreting the poem. The resulting works are an artistic response to his visit, referencing the themes in the poem that personally resonated.

Along for the journey were British Indian brothers, composer Soumik Datta and photographer and filmmaker Souvid Datta. As the poem was originally popularized by “the mesmerizing music of Nushret Fateh Ali Khan, who had translated the poem into song,” Azam wanted to visit the lake with a musician. He says finding the right musician was probably his biggest challenge, but felt Soumik Datta “was a perfect partner for the project.” Soumik knew and appreciated the area’s rich cultural traditions, and had extensive musical documentary experience. “It was good to work with a composer who is well versed with the region and his art form,” Azam says. “Given both our artistic temperaments, it was a blessing that we were working in an environment where we couldn't just leave when we clashed!” 

The main difference was creative style: “I generally respond quickly to the environment and can create work impromptu, which I was able to do in different locations around the lake. For Soumik, the trip was more a case of research and development, and gathering raw sounds and materials from which he will make an album. We still plan to do an immersive show at a later stage.” Azam adds there were also logistical challenges in working at a remote site on the Pakistani/Indian border. “The lake is heavily guarded and we had to attain special permission to visit at the night of the full moon,” an integral time within the poem, so imperative for the project.

Azam says he enjoys the creative revelations that come from painting in these kinds of situations, dealing with environmental and time constraints. Azam feels, “art is about the close and detailed observation of the natural world, where knowledge comes from looking and experiencing and not through any theory.”