TMS with Hashim Ali" />
  • ABOUT
  • PRINT
  • PRAISE
  • SUBSCRIBE
  • OPENINGS
  • SUBMISSIONS
  • CONTACT
The Missing Slate - For the discerning reader
  • HOME
  • Magazine
  • In This Issue
  • Literature
    • Billy Luck
      Billy Luck
    • To the Depths
      To the Depths
    • Dearly Departed
      Dearly Departed
    • Fiction
    • Poetry
  • Arts AND Culture
    • Tramontane
      Tramontane
    • Blade Runner 2049
      Blade Runner 2049
    • Loving Vincent
      Loving Vincent
    • The Critics
      • FILM
      • BOOKS
      • TELEVISION
    • SPOTLIGHT
    • SPECIAL FEATURES
  • ESSAYS
    • A SHEvolution is Coming in Saudi Arabia
      A SHEvolution is Coming in Saudi Arabia
    • Paxi: A New Business Empowering Women in Pakistan
      Paxi: A New Business Empowering Women in Pakistan
    • Nature and Self
      Nature and Self
    • ARTICLES
    • COMMENTARY
    • Narrative Nonfiction
  • CONTESTS
    • Pushcart Prize 2017 Nominations
      Pushcart Prize 2017 Nominations
    • Pushcart Prize 2016 Nominations
      Pushcart Prize 2016 Nominations
    • Pushcart Prize 2015 Nominations
      Pushcart Prize 2015 Nominations
    • PUSHCART 2013
    • PUSHCART 2014
Roving Eye, SpotlightOctober 29, 2012

Spotlight Artist: Hashim Ali

Hashim Ali is a young artist carefully balancing college with life as an artist and believes, among other things, that this is the perfect time for art in Pakistan even going as far as to say the country may see its own Renaissance. In this candid discussion with Creative Director Moeed Tariq, Mr. Ali talks about the person beneath the artist.

Your work is very direct, just how much of your thought process while painting actually ends up on canvas?
Hmm… well studying communication design has helped me (tremendously) in transferring my thoughts onto the canvas. Before I used to paint and the painting would end up ambiguous and the meaning very grey, but learning design really helped me translate what exactly went through my head. It also matured my ideas and the power to create the right impact. So I would say about 85% of the thought process gets translated onto the canvas.

Is there a recurrent theme in your creations?
I think so. I have my phases but I find the idea of controlling and being controlled really interesting. It just takes different forms… In my early work I used the idea of a puppet (a very direct symbol) for being controlled. In my later work I started making the symbol more abstract; the idea of the forbidden fruit, original sin, for me started to represent religious control.

Where / who do you draw your inspiration from?
My inspirations come from everywhere and anywhere. Mostly from a gut feeling and a bit of reading. I read a lot and it has always helped me create concepts and ideas.

Artists who have inspired me are quite a few, but I feel Klimt, Botticelli and Tim Burton (yes I consider him an artist) have inspired me a lot – in my visual language but (especially) in my process of ideation.

Which of the currently prevalent social problems in our country do you feel the most strongly about?
The lack of censorship of the media. Yes freedom (is important) but censorship is highly needed. For example, the brutal imagery of bomb blasts and the violence displayed on the news is highly inhumane. I believe that the media has a very strong part in promoting terrorism. They (help) create terror by (broadcasting inflammatory) news. Also the amount of nonsense and the amount of channels out there are ridiculously high. Call me backwards or whatever, but I long for those days of PTV where everything was organized and TV was worth watching.

Over the years, in your life you’ve ended up seeing both sides to many coins, do you think it’s important for an artist to walk the tightrope between opposites?

Yes, because I believe that an artist is a sensitive being. The more you experience the more sensitive you become.

If you could exhibit anywhere in the world? Where would you do it and why?
My wish has always been to exhibit at the Venice Biennale and the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

What’s a day in your life like?
A day in my life is rather full. I do a lot of side projects so in the morning it is college and straight after college it is work for the projects. In a typical day I eat very little, walk a lot, (and) am tense most of the time. the day would start at 7ish in the morning and end at 2 am. A rather long day.

You’re reclusive, why is that?
Really? I never thought I was reclusive…

If you could legalize one drug of choice in the country it would be?
I would go for the fictional drug “Soma” used in Huxley’s dystopian novel Brave New World. I think we as Pakistanis really need it. I just wish it existed.

What do you think of the other artists your age out there in the country?
I believe that soon Pakistan will be making its name in the world as a center of art. My fellows are exhibiting and creating work that is beyond brilliant. They are sending their work abroad, they are getting prestigious residencies, their work is getting permanently displayed in galleries and museums across the world. I think that our generation of artists are going to be bringing a Renaissance in Pakistani art very soon.

Guilty pleasures and pet peeves?
Guilty pleasure is definitely watching The Devil Wears Prada again and again… and my pet peeve is when plans are changed.

To the youngest artists who’re just entering the arena?
Listen to everyone but only follow the critique which you think is right. It’s harder than it sounds. :)

Describe your work in five words.
Dramatic and direct.

Mr. Ali’s work is available in our seventh issue, Fall 2012, downloadable here. 

Tags

issue 7

Share on

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Google +
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
Previous articleSpotlight Artist: Mohsin Shafi
Next articleSpotlight Musician: Adil Omar

You may also like

Author Interview: Rion Amilcar Scott

Spotlight Artist: Scheherezade Junejo

Poet of the Month: Simon Perchik

Ad

In the Magazine

A Word from the Editor

Don’t cry like a girl. Be a (wo)man.

Why holding up the women in our lives can help build a nation, in place of tearing it down.

Literature

This House is an African House

"This house is an African house./ This your body is an African woman’s body..." By Kadija Sesay.

Literature

Shoots

"Sapling legs bend smoothly, power foot in place,/ her back, parallel to solid ground,/ makes her torso a table of support..." By Kadija Sesay.

Literature

A Dry Season Doctor in West Africa

"She presses her toes together. I will never marry, she says. Jamais dans cette vie! Where can I find a man like you?" By...

In the Issue

Property of a Sorceress

"She died under mango trees, under kola nut/ and avocado trees, her nose pressed to their roots,/ her hands buried in dead leaves, her...

Literature

What Took Us to War

"What took us to war has again begun,/ and what took us to war/ has opened its wide mouth/ again to confuse us." By...

Literature

Sometimes, I Close My Eyes

"sometimes, this is the way of the world,/ the simple, ordinary world, where things are/ sometimes too ordinary to matter. Sometimes,/ I close my...

Literature

Quarter to War

"The footfalls fading from the streets/ The trees departing from the avenues/ The sweat evaporating from the skin..." By Jumoke Verissimo.

Literature

Transgendered

"Lagos is a chronicle of liquid geographies/ Swimming on every tongue..." By Jumoke Verissimo.

Fiction

Sketches of my Mother

"The mother of my memories was elegant. She would not step out of the house without her trademark red lipstick and perfect hair. She...

Fiction

The Way of Meat

"Every day—any day—any one of us could be picked out for any reason, and we would be... We’d part like hair, pushing into the...

Fiction

Between Two Worlds

"Ursula spotted the three black students immediately. Everyone did. They could not be missed because they kept to themselves and apart from the rest...."...

Essays

Talking Gender

"In fact it is often through the uninformed use of such words that language becomes a tool in perpetuating sexism and violence against women...

Essays

Unmasking Female Circumcision

"Though the origins of the practice are unknown, many medical historians believe that FGM dates back to at least 2,000 years." Gimel Samera looks...

Essays

Not Just A Phase

"...in the workplace, a person can practically be forced out of their job by discrimination, taking numerous days off for fear of their physical...

Essays

The Birth of Bigotry

"The psychology of prejudice demands that we are each our own moral police". Maria Amir on the roots of bigotry and intolerance.

Fiction

The Score

"The person on the floor was unmistakeably dead. It looked like a woman; she couldn’t be sure yet..." By Hawa Jande Golakai.

More Stories

Elias: 1949-1971

“He loathed the greater exposure it gave him to the non-Orthodox world. Not because he loathed the world he saw, but because he loathed that this world saw him.” Story of the Week (October 11), by Cathy Rosoff.

Back to top
One last love letter...

April 24, 2021

It has taken us some time and patience to come to this decision. TMS would not have seen the success that it did without our readers and the tireless team that ran the magazine for the better part of eight years.

But… all good things must come to an end, especially when we look at the ever-expanding art and literary landscape in Pakistan, the country of the magazine’s birth.

We are amazed and proud of what the next generation of creators are working with, the themes they are featuring, and their inclusivity in the diversity of voices they are publishing. When TMS began, this was the world we envisioned…

Though the magazine has closed and our submissions shuttered, this website will remain open for the foreseeable future as an archive of the great work we published and the astounding collection of diverse voices we were privileged to feature.

If, however, someone is interested in picking up the baton, please email Maryam Piracha, the editor, at maryamp@themissingslate.com.

Farewell, fam! It’s been quite a ride.

Read previous post:
Murakami’s 1Q84

Reviewed by Abbi Nguyen

Close