Charcoal Drawings of Raja Changez Sultan

Raja Changez Sultan’s paintings and drawings exhibition was opened on Thursday at the Tanzara Gallery. Sultan exhibited his work including the charcoal drawing, & “Himalayan Odyssey” series. In his charcoal drawings, Sultan explores the effects of light on dark exteriors, producing different pattern and textures. His exceptional style invokes living forms with glittering areas of light emerging from within the surface of the work. In the process he discovers a magic world of seemingly moonlit naiads, evoking myths of ancient sirens and luring unsuspecting viewers to an unknown dimension. There is an element of timelessness about his work, a serenity that is all pervasive.

Sultan appears to have encapsulated light and suggests that beyond the mountains one will discover the legendary Shangri-La. Women in these paintings are shown in a fusion of colours, with vague body contours and profiles.

Compared to the blue and turquoise in his landscapes, these works mostly deal in a tone of blue and red. “Himalayan Odyssey” bears signs of years of experimentation in abstract aesthetics, and only a close examination reveals its dissolving spaces.
Sultan, who started his career as a poet, effectively links the words and images that hold him in a thrall. The opening lines of his very first poem, which, in fact, inspired his paintings titled “The Divided Soul,” read as: “When you look in a mirror, do you see your image or an image of your image, or does your image see you, or, an image of you”.
Raja Changez Sultan extends the elusive imagery of the glowing artworks with a series in his charcoal pencil drawing where alluring forms create an enigmatic division between the real and the imagined. Under his obsessive fingers, figures emerge from charcoal sweeping across the paper.
“He is a painter and poet of the highest merit and competently combines the two lofty arts,” said Noshi Qadir from Tanzara.