Ali Gillani

Ali Gillani is a Lahore based visual artist, graduated with honors in miniature painting from the National College of Arts, (Lahore, Pakistan).

His practice is nurtured by humanity. It resonates with bystanders on the sidewalk, with strangers one meets in a public library, people we see in a grocery store, with the lady who sits alone on the pavement at five o clock every evening- it resonates with their experiences, it reflects each one of us, it goes on in repetition, picks up it’s rhythm and becomes loud enough for us to see it materialize.

The use of mythical creatures in his work comes from Persian miniature art. The need to use miniature art stemmed from his belief that tiny units in vigorous repetition eventually translate to something much bigger and meaningful. This is represented by fine strokes in his work, multiplying several thousand times to eventually reveal the final shapes.

Since his drawings focus on expression of sacredness as a testament to trials and endurance, he envisions his work as a documentation of past experiences. The documentation is symbolically represented by affects of parchments and manuscripts used throughout his work.

The demons and dragons, warriors and halos in his paintings show the hunger for power, the balance of nature, the energies channelling into something much bigger than the person and the artworks depicting different phases of a human’s life where he tries to find the perfect balance and never stops looking for it.