Important Notice

While he was studying at the National College of Art in Lahore, Waqas Khan learnt about and became captivated by the Bardakhat technique used in Mughal miniature painting. "It is a milenary method of crafting the drawings dot by dot with a thin brush made of squirrel hair. The surface is always the same: wasli paper, a multilayer handmade paper with natural glue that contains copper sulphate, which prevents the work from eating paper bug attacks... While he was studying at the National College of Art in Lahore, Waqas Khan learnt about and became captivated by the Bardakhat technique used in Mughal miniature painting. "It is a milenary method of crafting the drawings dot by dot with a thin brush made of squirrel hair. The surface is always the same: wasli paper, a multilayer handmade paper with natural glue that contains copper sulphate, which prevents the work from eating paper bug attacks and gurantees perdurability. Of a smooth touch, its grain is almost imperceptible because it is polished with a shell or stone. After acquiring the technique, Khan challenged himself to update it: 'I committed myself to use a Rotring 0.1 Rapido, a high precision tool used in architecture. In this way, the technique was travelling from the static into the organic: the pen weighs a lot and I have to use both hands firmly to prevent any error in the process, that would be fatal.' The concentration required by the artist is so high that he knows every pore of the paper where he works" 'And each pore knows the pressure that my hand applies to them, that is different in each dot, mark or line' he adds" ("Abstraction Contained: Waqas Khan", Sabrina Amrani Art Gallery press release, Madrid, 2012).

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