MS_The man who fell in love with the moon web.jpg

Mohsin Shafi

The Man who Fell in Love with the Moon
Screen print, acrylics, photo transfers, Inkjet prints, felt-tip pen, card paper, and matt medium
43×43 cm
2014
Available

Mohsin Shafi is an interdisciplinary artist. His work investigates the blurred edges between identity and the intentions of identity – attempting to capture what he sees and record their frail existence – only to return and relive. With his collages, ensembles, video works and installations, Shafi often engages ostensibly local narratives and challenges supposedly familiar images that have become established in our collective understanding. Picking from actual personal narratives as well as records and references, Shafi adds on to the visuals in a way that actually exposes a deep-set discomfort. He exploits his unadulterated access to the deepest emotions embedded beneath the surface; to explore the whispered secrets of dreams and long buried memories.
Mohsin Shafi is interested in how we remember and the relationship of memory to time, places and people. He charts his passage through grief with whimsical precision, a startling sense of humor and an acute awareness of the volatility of language. Images and words are never set against each other in his narratives but rather merge into a poetic whole.
Shafi’s piece The Man who Fell in Love with the Moon addresses his personal narrative of disturbing interpretations of acquainted subjects, slumbering histories and buried traumas. He associates this image with the very human preoccupation with narcotics and the dangerous pursuit of chemical dreaming. These perceived images hence become facets of his current persona, both real and imagined.
Living and working in Lahore, Pakistan, Mohsin Shafi holds a MA Degree in Visual Arts and BFA Degree in Design, both from the oldest school of art in Pakistan, the National College of Arts in Lahore. He continues to serve his alma mater as a visiting faculty member in the MA Visual Art Program under the Department of Fine Arts.

Image Courtesy | Mohsin Shafi