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80's OF RAHI
In 1980, Rahi was in Islamabad, Participating in the National Art Exhibition, where he was awarded the first prize for painting. While there, he was given by the Pakistan National Council of the Arts, an invitation to participate in the 17th modern art exhibition in Tokyo. Rahi readily accepted the offer. Rahi had took with him, besides his own work, the work of eight other Pakistani artists: Sadequain, Gulgee, Hajra, Jamil Naqsh, Laila, Ijazul Hasan, Jamila Masood and M.H.Rumi. Rahi's host a leading Japanese painter, 72 year old Kazuo Azuma said publicly that, in modern style, the work of Pakistani artists was the most outstanding, and he was referring to Rahi, Jamil Naqsh and Gulgee. During the seven different seminars in Japan, rahi greatly benefited by hearing the views of other leading artists from around the world and exchanging ideas with them.
Rahi went to Peshawar in January, 1982 and exercised his personal magnetism and pedagogic skill on the group of eager students who welcomed the arrival of a distinguished teacher in their midst. Rahi claims that he put into practice the Advance Painting Course (APC) which he had learnt in Tokyo and which had been specially developed to bring the artists of Asia upto international standards. So pleased was Rahi with the results of his brief efforts in Peshawar that he decided to invite some of the best of his students to display their work in a group show that he held in Karachi in September, 1982
| 80's GALLERY |
Rahi in 80's moved on to the next stage in which the achievement of this stage are combined with the figurative work in abstract cubist style that he had done so successfully earlier. Not only has he reintroduced the figure but the figures have a social theme, as in his much earlier work of 1968 - 69. This does not mean he was taking a step backward. Rather, he was drawing upon each of his stages and using whatever he had learnt to create a higher synthesis. Rahi was now acknowledging the rights of society on the artist and the desire to achieve closer communication with his public. To some it may appear that the intrusion of the human figure in the free play of forms and spaces is to that extent a loss, because hands, feet and faces cannot be reduced completely to the level of a certain area of space as a rectangle or a triangle. they have a very arresting character and the insistent almost riveting power of the human eye distracts the attention from the aesthetic game of receding and projecting, dominating and subservient areas. Whether the non-aesthetic values, as conceived in pure abstract, art, can be questioned but we have the example of such masterpieces as Guernica by Picasso to prove that the highest degree of social consciousness can imbue and inspire a great work of art. We may, therefore, not condemnout of hand the efforts of rahi to develop and create a style of his own constructivism and neo-realism in which he can express his acute social awareness and feeling for the human estate while at the same time achieving the plentitude of aesthetic expression.