World according to Mujib

He could be a character right out of Dan Brown’s books — the scientist with an eye for the arts. In this case, it happens to be a physicist who has taken to collage art. Farhan Mujib, a physicist by profession, was originally a ‘Sunday painter’. Later, as his collage works began to catch the imagination of the art world, he has turned to art in a big way.

It happened during a return flight to Aligarh from a conference, when Mujib scissored off snippets from the magazines they gave him on the flight. Back home, when he assembled them, the effect took him off balance. Now, he happens to be one of India’s well-known names in collage art.

Farhan Mujib chooses architectural forms as the basis of his visual vocabulary, creating a sense of architectural perspective and spatial organisation in the process. In fact, Mujib started off with ‘haveli’ collages, reminiscent of the havelis seen in Rajasthani miniatures. Now, of course his vocabulary is more contemporary, but elements of the haveli continue to dominate. The Kutub Minar is a favourite with him, as is Humayun’s tomb.

The collage looks seamless, but the plethora of detailed ornamentation seems to dominate, taking the mind off the heart of the art works. He also creates the silhouette effect in places, in the margins, especially, by using plain bits of pastel coloured paper. In contrast with the heavy ornamentation inside, the silhouettes, though small, become imposing, nevertheless.

Mujib prefers the square format. And they all come bordered with ornamentation, whatever be the concept he espouses in that particular work. In some of his works, Mujib’s fascination for Bollywood comes out, and you see images of Dev Anand and Dilip Kumar to their modern counterparts glancing out of the collages. While his collages show architecture predominantly, some of his works dare to show cracks on their facades.    
This is an era when being obvious is passé, and artists seek to seem complex and un-understood, a far cry form the beginning of time when man took to art to express himself to the world around. A straightforward person, Mujib resists the temptation to attribute inner meanings and hidden significances to his imagery. In one of his interviews, he had boldly stated that he “wouldn’t like to intellectualise his work so long as they are happy, positive and give joy.”

You see surprisingly little of his former profession in these collages — physics. It is ornamentation, architecture and spirituality all the way. The ornamentation is intricate and colourful, much like the Mughal ornamentation. The spatial composition extends to creating architectural perspective. You encounter not just spaces, but elements like doors and windows, pillars and arches, verandas and inner sanctums... 

It was Galileo who first declared famously that he saw the music of the spheres in the planets’ movements. Leonardo da Vinci made the connecting thread commonly perceivable by his marvelous rein over the arts and the sciences. But in later times, and especially in this age of specialisation, the gap between arts and the sciences has been growing wide and deep, and the twain seems to bridge, until you come across artists like Farhan Mujib who demonstrate by their expertise and passion for both, that art and science might begin at opposing poles, but they ultimately converge towards the same end  — at understanding the miracle of existence.

The Sufi element in his art is evident. You see it in his imagery — the interior of a dargah, a window (symbolic of opening and closing of ‘heart’, according to Sufi thought), etc. Of course he adds elements from elsewhere — jaalis, shelves and furniture. But a self confessed atheist, Mujib doesn’t choose or leave out religious imagery on purpose. It just happens.

And basically, this former physicist finds the whole exercise stimulating — the process of putting together these images into a comprehensive whole. And as somebody who is passionate about perfection, this can be very excruciating work — to create images that are both symmetrical and ornate.

It is hard work, and Mujib does a lot of background work before he actually sticks the bits of paper on his collage base. The passion for perfection is something he imbibed from his father who instilled in him the need to do anything perfectly — be it playing, or poetry. And it is to his training in physics that Mujib gives the credit for his perfectly symmetrical works.

“Physics and math are areas where the mind has to be very very precise, the science has to be understood very, very exactly, and represented accurately. This is very hard work, and there is no room for error, for sloppiness,” Mujib says. This has rubbed on into his art.

You also see in his works, a dominance of squares.  “You will not find a square in the natural world. The square, the rectangle, etc are creations of man. I am more awed by the world made by man than by the world made by God,” he says.

According to Mujib, he creates these collages for his personal pleasure. “My eye seeks pleasure in their forms, textures, and shapes. But at the same time a painting or collage is not just about what it looks like on the surface. I enjoy getting the collage right, but ultimately, I hope that takes the viewer  — through the painting — to someplace else, to some plane of thought.”