Imtiaz is making waves with art

Artist Imtiaz Ahmad paints a frightening future of our sea life in the hope that he can hook people in the kingdom into recycling before the world drowns in an ocean of plastic.

As a fishing fanatic, his love of the sea has made him passionate about showing people what is happening to our ocean the best way he knows.

The 43-year-old Indian has produced a collection entitled ‘Plastic Potion’ from his home in Juffair. He said: “It’s our irresponsibility. Discarded plastic products are contributing to a future in which sea creatures will be replaced with ring pulls, containers, cups and bottles.”

Inspired by a study he read about the Pacific Ocean’s ‘plastic soup bowl’ Imtiaz went on to sketch his ideas on paper. A ‘plastic soup’ of waste has been found floating in the Pacific Ocean and growing at an alarming rate that now covers an area twice the size of the US. The debris is held in place by swirling underwater currents. This drifting ‘soup’ stretches from about 500 nautical miles off the Californian coast, across the northern Pacific, past Hawaii and almost as far as Japan.

The father-of-two said: “When I read about the plastic soup, there was so much going through my mind and I wanted to share my thoughts … that is where my inspiration for my collection of work came from.

“I am trying to encourage people to recycle and become aware of what we are doing to the environment.

“I am concerned, especially as I go fishing most weekends, but it was only when I saw and heard people’s reactions and how they were touched by the idea behind my work that I thought this is it – we need to continue conveying the message in more effective ways.

“We all know the harm caused and that we should recycle more, but plastic is available everywhere and it is near impossible to separate it from your life.

“In my childhood we never bought bottled water. We would drink from the tap and we used to get milk in glass bottles or steel pots … now we want products from all over the world and we want them on our shelves. We are a generation that gets what it wants and now we’re paying the price.”

Imtiaz even went as far as trying to give up using plastic altogether for one month. “It was extremely difficult and I was defeated,” he said.  “Plastic is everywhere.

“The earth is only one quarter land … the rest is the sea. The largest dumping place happens to be the oceans. Rubbish may vanish from sight but it doesn’t disappear, therefore we don’t see what we are actually doing to our environment.”

Using an impressionist style and acrylic paint, Imtiaz uses the influence of his favourtie artists Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet to exude a specific mood in his artwork.

He sketched down all his thoughts before he started his first painting, School of Mackerel. After researching the way the fish move and form groups, he spent four to five days perfecting the details and replacing the mackerel with plastic bottles.

He explained how his paintings ‘started telling a story’ and his excitement led him to paint a whole collection of different species of fish replaced with plastic.

He said: “I read about Albatross birds and how they feed plastic to their young. In nature many of these animals are even accepting plastic as a sea creature. Why can’t I be the one to show the people if everything in the sea was replaced by plastic just what it will look like and how it will affect not only the sea environment but our lives.

“I looked at a lot of pictures of sardines at one point. And in the south of Africa during the breeding season, lots of the big fish come and attack the small ones. I restaged this in my painting ‘Sardine Run’ using plastic bottles.”

Imtiaz explained that with the environment changing and transforming into plastic, the future shark will eventually mutate into a ‘plastic beast’. He went on to create a shark fin made from shredded pieces of plastic, donated to him by Bahrain Cleaning Company.

“The government is trying hard and has even started placing separate bins around the country,” he said. “But many people are not used to the idea of recycling and are not using these bins.”

Imtiaz attended the JJ School of Arts in Mumbai, where he received a bachelor’s in fine arts. After graduating he moved back to his hometown of Delhi before accepting a six-month job in Singapore for the National Kidney Foundation, which led him to move to Bahrain in 2005 to work in advertising. He currently works for Vahid Associates Brand Futurist as creative director.

Whilst he was studying, he learned all the general forms of art and specifically enjoyed using plaster. He said: “I love working with plaster and clay. Plaster is easy to carve and I use a lot of light to bring it to life and look three-dimensional. For the Plastic Potion collection I carved a sea turtle trapped in a plastic net, it was a crowd favourite.”

Imtiaz has big plans for his art in the future. Although he admits juggling his work, fishing, family and social life can be challenging, he still says there is always time to do what you love.

He said: “I love producing art. I want to stage a huge exhibition on sea life in the future. My concept is using a hadara, which is a fish trap placed in the shallow waters with a wide entrance that narrows down into a tight trap.

“I want to create a human-sized hadara where people will walk into it and get trapped, like a live net. Initially, the visitors will not realise where they are going, but slowly when they get into a tighter area they will realise they are trapped.”

His wife Sobi, 38, works as a librarian in an Islamic school and believes that their children, Hamad, 13, and Emaad, six, have inherited their father’s artistic abilities. She explained how Emaad follows Imtiaz around wanting to learn more and getting his ‘hands messy’ with water colours and acrylic paint. Hamad is more of a tech whiz kid and designs presentations, graphics and has a keen interest in computer design.