Faizan Adil
Faizan Adil is a black and white photographer who has exhibited in Lahore, Pakistan. Recent exhibitions in Lahore include venues such as ArtNext, Lahore, COMO Museum of Art, Lakir Gallery, and Zahoor ul Akhlaq Gallery. Faizan’s publications include magazines and catalogues such as Loosen Art, Parsimonia Revista, Gene Urban Arts, Edify Fiction, Bright Sleep, Tenth Street Miscellany, Memoir, Gulf Stream, and Phaser Music Magazines.
The mostly black and white photography depicts urban blight and decay of contemporary Pakistan. Social commentary often takes on the abuse of the elderly in Pakistani society as well as showing the busyness and motion of over-populated centers through the use of over-exposure in film. Rapid movement and inclinations towards individuality becomes erased through the depiction of mostly blurred out faces.
Despite these lingering dark themes, there remains a sense of individual discovery through the dignity of Faizan’s photography. His more intimate portraits instill a sense of dignity in subjects who may have been wronged by society from a social welfare perspective. The sense of self-discovery becomes palpable in Faizan’s work as we explore the various cavernous interiors of subway stations and aging infrastructure. The beauty of Pakistan, despite the dark side he portrays, becomes revealed through the high contrast precision and compositional strength of the photography.
One of Faizan’s urban figurative scenes (pictured above) reveals a mysterious figure outlined in what appears to be the inside of an urban park. The photograph looks as if taken in the middle of the night and does not appear staged but rather taken in a documentary manner. Such a poignant observation of strangers in an urban setting reveals an authentic identification of their behavior and body language. The capturing of the darkness and minimal light reveals an inclination towards poetic meaning.
Faizan Adil creates presentations of refined photography which imply sociological implications from a social welfare perspective. The works could not really be described as activism, but rather, as a documentary study of real life in Pakistan with the use of fine art photography techniques, particularly in shooting with black and white. These unglamorous depictions have a sense of realism which are enhanced by the photography, through careful capturing of angularity and precision, Faizan depicts the average lifestyle in Pakistan, free of filters or fluff.
