Bandah
Ali

Bandah Ali is a self-taught painter from Hyderabad, Sindh. He started drawing at the age of nine, and from the start his subjects were close to home: Sindhi culture, portraits and the landscape. He has been honoured by the Government of Pakistan with the Tamgha-e-Imtiaz, the President’s Medal of Excellence.

The paintings he is best known for show the women of Tharparkar dancing. He builds them from small square strokes of oil, a pattern critics have read as the ralli, the patchwork quilt sewn across Sindh. Up close the canvases are tiles of colour; from across a room they become ghagras opening in a spin, embroidered cholis, bangles and silver, and the desert sand lifting under the dancers’ feet. The squares do not stop at the edge of a dress: they break loose and carry the movement out into the air.

Four dances of Thar run through the work: dandan rand, the circle; mitko, danced close in pairs; chakkar rand, the spin; and rasooro, danced with sticks. In many canvases the light falls from above onto the dancers, which reviewers have connected with the sema of the Sufis. The arches of Makli and the temples of Tharparkar appear behind them. Asked by Dawn why the paintings are so joyful, he said it was because he was.

He works in oil on canvas, at many scales, from small studies to large canvases, and has shown in solo exhibitions in Lahore and Karachi. He works from Hyderabad and Karachi.