Wajid Ali

Born in 1981 in Daharki (Pakistan)
Lives and works in Gujrat (Pakistan)

Wajid Ali obtained his MA (Hons.) in Visual Art from the National College of Arts, Lahore, in 2010, after receiving his BFA (Hons.) from the University of Karachi in 2004. His work has been exhibited widely both nationally and internationally. He has been a key member of important artistic projects, including: the ‘W11 – Karachi to Melbourne Project’ for the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne; and ‘The Great Wall of Pakistani Truck Art Project at the new Islamabad Airport, in 2017. He has conducted several art workshops and seminars at various institutions, such as: University of Gujrat; Mirpur University, Azad Kashmir; Hazara University, Manshera, KPK, and has worked with the craftsmen of Hunza and Attabad in Gilgit-Baltistan. Ali’s artistic practice derives from his passion from land travel, roaming the diverse regions of Pakistan in buses, trains, trucks and automobiles, taking the viewer on a virtual voyage through his experiences. These experiences have led the artist to discover and immerse himself in new cultures and their modes of expression, establishing a novel, tripartite dialogue between the audience, Ali’s personal journeys and the places to which he has travelled.

Ali’s work for the Karachi Biennale 2017 is a series of lightboxes; artistic travelogues depicting his wanderings from January 2014 to December 2016. The concept of an artistic travelogue has been a long-term project for Ali, having developed it in 2009, with the artist marking his journeys in a diary on a daily basis ever since. The grand scale of the 36 lightboxes appropriately highlights the abstract complexity of the intersecting web of the 1095 drawings, with each of the three rows of twelve drawings representing a calendar year. Ali describes his project: “Through lines and mark-making I have recreated journeys that have been taken by me over several years, on paths trodden a hundred times or sometimes only once. The continuity of the lines reflects time and space, taking the viewer on a trip through my personal experiences.”