Irfan Hasan

For the past few years, my practice has been predominantly subjugated to the idea of human figure and portrait within the contexts of South
Asian and Western art history and aesthetics.
Being trained as an Indo-Persian miniature painter, I imitated several Old Miniature Painting manuscripts to learn the stylized contouring, intricate brushwork, and watercolor wash methods of the Persian, Mughal, and Bengal Schools. It's not just the technique that fascinated me replicating the manuscripts but the storytelling and stylized representation of figures, mythological creatures, demons, gods, kings, and humans. At the same time, I was also inclined towards exploring the theory of 1 and 2-point perspectives from the Renaissance Period and French Academic Painting.
I pick design structures from the miniature and the 3-dimensional characterizations of classical European paintings and weave them together in order to bring a new perspective. This process is arbitrary. I can't detach technique from the idea of my work. Keeping technique in mind consciously choose the images I paint. It may look simple and graphical to some extent, but its making is quite intricate and complex. It starts with an opaque watercolor wash and further develops with a single-hair squirrel tail brush. By building up layers it develops with tiny strokes, the process resembling pointillism.