Pakistani artist says will remain a pupil always

Pakistani artist, social worker, philanthropist and stamp designer Jimmy Engineer is on a goodwill visit to Sri Lanka to promote people to people contact between the two countries through his art.

Engineer delivered a talk to the Pakistani community living in Sri Lanka at the Pakistan High Commission Colombo on Wednesday.

In his brief remarks, Engineer identified himself as a disciple of the Great Master and spoke of the spiritual connection that drives him to serve Pakistan as an artist.

"All my life I'll remain a pupil and I'll never become a master," he said.

Engineer said he regarded his art creations as a God-given gift.

Highlighting the background of painting on huge canvasses, Engineer, who was born in a Parsi family of Loralai, Balochistan, in 1954, said it was just to acknowledge the sacrifices of people during the Pakistan Movement. He said in the early 1970s, he started having bad dreams of bloodshed and violence and accordingly he had drawn several big paintings depicting various aspects of the Muslim sufferings and sacrifices while migrating at the time of partition to their new motherland-Pakistan that they had achieved in 1947.

Pakistan High Commissioner Seema Ilahi Baloch said Engineer's compassion for the people and his passion for his work makes him an ideal ambassador for Pakistan when he visits and works in other countries. She thanked him for sharing his insights and philosophy.

Engineer arranged an exhibition of his selected paintings at the Lionel Wendt Memorial Art Centre in Colombo.

He donated prints of these paintings to the Lionel Wendt Memorial Art Center, which has been celebrating 60 years of its existence. Engineer has made over 2,000 painting, 1,000 calligraphies and about 20,000 prints which are in private collections around the world including China, India, Pakistan, Russia, UK and US.

He has the unique honour of having painted Allama Iqbal's Javed Nama-a feat that Iqbal said would only be possible for one who had ilm-e-Ilahi.

Amongst his famous works is the one depicting partition which can been seen at the National Art Gallery in Islamabad. He has also designed a number of stamps including the four stamp, setenant issue depicting Partition in 2000.

Earlier, Engineer visited Sri Lanka in 2004 and organised a number of programmes in different parts of the island for physically challenged children.