In a well defined space structure, lines are spread out in rhythmic frequencies. They meet, Accumulate and multiply. There are small regions and vast territories, motion and stillness, there are energetic centres, tension and release. Space is invested, charged with organic forces, obeying mysterious laws.Through a linear language of which he has acquired mastery, Yusuf reveals his essential preoccupation : lines in space. He starts with the simplest strategies of horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines, to build up pictorial situations of great complexity and sophistication.
An intuitive perception of geometro-dynamics and acute form sensibility lead him to the higher structures of human awareness.Paintings are worked out meticulously towards perfect form orchestration. Some are bathed in light to attain motionless crystal purity. Others reveal infinite variation, recurrences and organic growth. Colours creep in discreetly to become an integral part. Forms, as counterparts or dynamic opposites, expand and contract to find the right relationship and equilibrium. Ever present, the line an alive entity, generates line, radiates
energy-plays the life spectacle. The evidence is not the narration of life, it is life in essence. Yusuf has liberated himself from the visual image of the exterior world and is involved in a major preoccupation-the painted space-almost like the vocal musician, who goes beyond the comprehensible word, to pure music.Here is a painter’s vision of great authenticity, with origins deep-rooted in different facets of Indian thought. The long and discreet research of Yusuf reveals an original expression of rare sensibility. His paintings should be seen in silent meditation, without prejudice or preconceived notions, for sheer joy and exaltation.S.H. RAZA
Paris 21stNov. 1988
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| ( S H Raza and Yusuf Afzal Hussain ) |
My Lines :When describing the ultimate purity of a
line Paul Klee had opined that a line can never be drawn in its purest
form. Whereas I believe that if a line has no true existence in nature, then
how can anyone judge its purity at all. A line is an invention of man, who
believes that it actually has a place of its own in nature. So far a line has been used to explain
accessible things, to give expression to the shape and form of projections, to
define circles, etc. The basic line is drawn to express the texture. A line
lays a very important role in giving a dead form to any creative effort. It is
light that enables us to see natural shapes clearly. The capacity to reflect
light gives things their colour. Two opposite colours make it possible to see
the out lines markedly.
The reflection of light enables the line to
determine the outside limits of any thing thus making them recognizable. I
believe that a line should be viewed only by its basic character of art lining.
Normally I keep a line ___________ in the space and then without making it give
a shape to any natural commodity, I let it take its own form, or let it loose
to create its own line and shape.
When a point moves, a line is drawn. In my
art the line plays a very important role. When I picturise the group of lines
as a basic element, a strange happening occurs. Many lines emanate from this
indivisible point, which then give birth to innumerable unrecorded lines. So,
when I draw one single line I an actually creating two of them – positive and
negative. The white lines between two drawn black lines is not purely space
that has been left out. It is actually a deliberate effort. They also form to
my line drawings, the same way as the black lines do. The two combine to
produce a sensuousness which breathes life into my lines and gives them
dynamism and mobility.
In my paintings the lines maintain their
basic linear character, and pictures drawn with them are also linear in
character. My shapes and forms are not surrounded by lines, infact they are
left independent and given an infinite form. In this way a line remains a line
in my pictures alternately running, turning, sustaining, joining, rising,
flying, breaking and sometimes creating a net like texture. Some times the line
goes back to its origin, becomes a point and then just disappears. And in the
midst of all this query quietly, without disturbing the linear character, my
paintings get filled with colours.For me the line is a living unit, full of
limitless possibilities I believe that when an artist creates a shape using the
line, then it is the line that gives it a definite shape, then ending all other
possibilities. That is why in my line drawings you do not see shape of any natural
thing – my group of lines is full of possibilities capable of being taken
anywhere. My creations are not created through extraneous lines. Infact they
are a group of innumerable lines which can be increased or drawn in any
direction. And so my line drawings have their origins from the lines, their
space and form is always basic where the innermost values remain the same and
where the possibilities are endless.
My paintings are musical notations of music
yet unborn:
They are the concrete shapes of vocal tunes
that cannot be sung or played to music. The scattered notes are abstract
musical notations, but we feel their vibrations in our senses. While a linear
drawing is an extension of a point. The lines (in my painting) seem to be
quivering on that point where lines would transform themselves into music and
are scattered. This is my notion to draw.
- YUSUF
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| (Recent painting by Yusuf) |
The passion of Yusuf’s work comes through
best in his large black and white canvasses, where his life of details strikes
you. I have never seen any work quite like this and that is the nicest thing
about it. There is no sense of dejavu. No comparisons are possible. All you
have are these gripping graphic statements, in minimal colours, reaching out
for your attention, they tell you many ways. Much of it may escape you, if you
are used to figurative work. What you cannot miss, however, is his amazing
control grammar, the subtle syntax, the mystical pauses.
PRITISH NANDY
The Illustrated Weekly of India – 1989
Exhibitions but still remains badly neglected
by connoisseurs. In a group show his work tends to appear rather austere in
comparison to the pictorial flourishes of other works in the exhibition; but
actually these drawings of his are perfectly and meticulously worked out
arrangement.Writing a foreward to one of Yusuf’s
catalogues, the elder painter (and Director of Roopankar) J.Swaminathan says: “…..There
is none better than Yusuf how understands the meaning and magic of line. Over
the years he has let it flows through his finger at times creating fearful
anthropomorphic forms, at times letting it resurrect human forms, sometimes agonized and sometimes full of joy in free-floating space and at times along to
play with play with its own rhythm and create forms which are not cognizable,
which have no reference but all the same flow out of the hands of man …… “
YUSUF must have moved away, a long time
ago, from figurative work. Over the years he has developed a thorough command
of formal structure. It is lucid, free-flowing and vibrant. Side by side he
effortlessly creates textures which are subtle as they are individualistic.
Indeed, among all other graphicists it will be difficult to find an artist with
Yusuf’s flair. Although he uses the language of monochromatic drawing, it is
easy to realize that behind these drawings there is a poet’s personality and
probably even that of a mystic thinker. In older times the art of calligraphy
was closely allied to poetry and mysticism. Yusuf’s drawings have that same
calligraphic depth and perfection, and hence this surmise about the man within.
DHYANESHWAR NADKARNI
SEWENTEEN INDIAN PAINTERS-1998
Ever since, he has been involved with
ink-both on paper and canvas – his work is composed of tiny strokes that build
and hold afloat. Apparitional images, there is no relation
with calligraphy for where the letters bend, ‘stop’, he says. Yusuf has
protected himself from influence, always believing that painting things as they
are, is not the purpose of art. This is what caused him to change both his
technique and the formal values. But the maintains that fragments he takes upon
himself the burden of enthusing it with a new energy (E = MC2, a
transformed power, colours creep in very slowly into his works, currently he
tints only his canvases with a cloth dipped in waterproof ink.
AMARNATH
INDIAN ECLECTICS-1989
(Copy right text and image by artist)
