Detritus from Exploded Stars: Khalil Chishtee brings out the soul from trash

Curator Nafisa Rizvi relates his work with the Big Bang Theory

KARACHI: Artist Khalil Chishtee’s works on display at the Sanat gallery revolve around the theme that the world was created out of nothing.

His first solo exhibition comprising sculptures of men created with plastic and garbage bags opened at the gallery on Friday. They seemed to echo the idea behind the saying of American astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, who said: “So you [man] are made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?”

The title of the exhibition, ‘Detritus from Exploded Stars’, is obviously derived from the above-mentioned saying. Curator Nafisa Rizvi related the works with the Big Bang Theory. “Working with the title ‘Detritus from Exploded Stars’, I would say Khalil has done justice to it through these eight pieces made by plastic bags used to dispose of trash.”

According to Chishtee, whatever an artist makes is a mirror to his own life and experience. Talking about his piece, titled ‘Artist’s statement’, he explained the idea behind using the same kind of beard on the sculpture as the one he wore. “An artist’s work is its own narrative and the faces we create in our work are the ones we have met once in our lifetime. If I depict evil [in my work], that means that somewhere in my mind I had evil thoughts.”

Pointing towards his piece titled ‘Sweet Prison’, Chishtee said that he believes there is life in everything which is why he used plastic as his medium. “I create people out of garbage,” he said, defining his thought about the sculpture of a man holding his son. “This piece has some life. The distorted effect and torn plastic is also a sign that life is fading away from this.”

In a subtle manner, Chishtee has presented a fusion of spiritual and scientific philosophies with his focus set on the human that was created from the ‘exploded stars’. “The white colour represents the soul and spirit and that’s how my work looks like,” he said, explaining why white trash bags were used.

“One cannot comprehend how he starts working on a piece after looking at his finished product,” claimed Rizvi. “Taking a piece of plastic in his hand and moulding it into a shape and joining those plastic shapes to form these people is itself an art.”

Chishtee’s fixing of the plastic shape forms the outline of the human form but is not entirely complete. “I left every piece incomplete because life, like the trash bag, is fading.”

An environmentally concerned artist

Sticking specifically to plastic and avoiding polluting materials, he did not use glue or fire to mould the shape of plastic to form his sculptures. “Sometimes I used hot iron to give them a proper shape but on very low density so that it won’t generate fumes,” he said.

The show will continue till April 4.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 24^th, 2015.