An upside-down view

Artist Zakkir Hussain uses inverted logic in his drawings

By Shevlin Sebastian

On most days, artist Zakkir Hussain would stand at the window of his studio at Kadavanthra, Kochi. Mango and drumstick trees are growing in his backyard. Often, he would see a sparrow fly in and peck at a mango.

He wondered, in the name of development, if the tree was cut down, would the bird have a memory of the tree? Or if the sparrow died, would the tree have a recollection of it?

Zakkir felt that everything on earth was under threat, be it human beings, animals, birds, trees, and nature. Such was the precariousness of life.

Over the past three years, he did a series of brush drawings using Indian Ink. Around 54 works are on display at the Berth Art Gallery in Mattancherry. The drawings range in size from 30” x 22” and 28” x 22”.

“I like Indian ink because it is risky,” he said. “You cannot make tonal variations. Black or white is the only possibility. This is the best way to convey my present moods and thoughts.”

Zakkir titled his work ‘Obliterated Stories’. He wanted to show that the recently implemented crime laws in India are obliterating the concept of personal freedom. “I want to highlight the social tensions,” said Zakkir. “The relationship between human beings should be harmonious. They should be a beacon of light to each other. People should express kindness, love and benevolence.”

At first glance, you realise Zakkir has negated the idea of logic in his work.

There is a drawing of a young woman in which her breast is exposed. On the left side of the drawing, a male hand is clutching her arm. Behind her eyes, there is a drawing of a mother and child. From there, a line goes downwards and at the end, there are a series of houses hanging upside down.

“Through the houses, I wanted to show that women, sometimes, are forced to leave from one place to another,” Zakkir said. A dog is visible near her open mouth. It is as if the woman wants to speak but cannot do so. “The girl is going through an inner trauma. She has no language to express herself because society does not allow her,” said Zakkir.

Another drawing is of a young woman with exposed breasts. In her hand, she is holding the branch of a tree which has impaled her palm. A sparrow sits on the branch. From the ear, a Kerala traditional lamp juts out. At its end, there is an image of an upside-down face of a girl. There is another image of a bird whose beaks have been tied with a string.

As to his influences, Zakkir said that he has drawn inspiration from artists like Somnath Hore, Benode Behari Mukherjee, Ramkinkar Baij, and KP Krishnakumar.

So far, he has had a successful career. Zakkir has exhibited at the Vadehra Art Gallery in Delhi, Gallery Ske in Bangalore, Gallery OED, Kochi, The Guild Art Gallery, Mumbai, Conflictorium, Ahmedabad, Gallery White, Baroda, Zuzeum Art Centre, Riga, Latvia and Gallery Krinzinger, Vienna. He took part in the inaugural edition of the Kochi Muziris Biennale.

At present, Zakkir is on a two-month residency at a private museum in Zurich.

Beginnings

Zakkir got interested in art from an early age. He grew up in the village of Chadiroor in Alleppey district. For his Plus Two, he studied at Maharaja’s College in Kochi. He was a Left sympathiser. One of his friends, Sabu Dinesh, asked Zakkir to do some drawings on some posters. Instead of political slogans, Sabu used poems from some of Latin America’s greatest poets, like Pablo Neruda and Octavia Paz.

So Zakkir did drawings, using Indian Ink, to match the words. Zakkir and Dinesh pasted these posters in public spaces like bus stops and shop windows. “I felt excited because I had done a sort of social communication,” said Zakkir. “The positive response from the people also got me interested in art.”

Zakkir got admission to do a degree course at the College of Fine Arts in Thiruvananthapuram. During this period, he met and fell in love with Sreeja P, an aspiring artist. They got married in 1999. Both did a course in graphics at the Maharaja Sayajirao University in Baroda. Later, they settled in Kochi.

While Zakkir has been a full-time artist since 2004, Sreeja teaches at a nearby school. They have a son who is doing his MSc at the University of Freiburg, Germany.

Asked to sum up his work, Zakkir said, “I want to develop a new language, thought processes and metaphors. It is an ongoing process.”

(Published in The Sunday Magazine, The New Indian Express, South India and Delhi)