Through his practice of decades, Yusuf has mastered the subtle art of abstraction using his quintessential style of linear drawing, coupled with forms and colors of depth. While the visual quality of his work has remained recognizable, it has steadily shown an evolution of his mind and internal state of being. The forms that have continuously developed through each body of work, takes one through the trance-like state of the artist’s own recollections, memories and fragments of existence that traipse through the linear, giving glimpses of the other side to the viewer. His vast canvases have order but simultaneously weave in disruption, like the still body of the subtle mind that is prone to being activated with each conscious experience. Though the art depicts abstract landscapes that seem external and intangible, they are actually mirroring the internal we all contain, cavernous and palpable, rippling with interspaced sensations and alive with rhythm. This is the liminal point that combines artistic practice with artistic experience. The art eventually becomes testament to the journey of balance that life asks all of us to maneuver. The minimalist technique of his strokes, the pointillism conveying fragmentation, the shapes that look unfamiliar, still manage to resonate something primal. It is the instinct that we all carry within us: to respond to symmetry, to mimic movement and to desire ultimate merger.

Curated by Sanjana Shah