\u201cWelding burns you, I get burnt every day,\u201d sculptor Ehtisham Jadoon told me from his Islamabad workshop. He spoke about marble floors cracking under the weight of his multi-tonne sculptures and hours spent tearing off bits of metal from his own skin, but zoom out a little and it all starts to make sense. An ibex with rust-clad horns, a tyrannosaurus with gears for guts and a lion with a mane of steel cables \u2014 these are just some of the forms Jadoon has waiting for anyone who ventures to his \u2018gallery,\u2019 located just off GT Road.<\/p>\n
This wasn\u2019t planned, the artist told me. \u201cI didn\u2019t know what my passion was, and everyone has a different perspective on what [passion] means. I spent 35 years of my life without knowing who I am.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finding his voice<\/p>\n Jadoon explained he\u2019s been looking for an outlet all his life; having tried martial arts and mountain biking, he found his calling in working with his hands. \u201cI later understood that [all my pent-up] energy can be channelled into creating forms,\u201d he said. He started without any formal experience in the arts, having previously worked with his sister in her textile business and spending some time in construction.<\/p>\n When asked about the challenges of taking up metalwork as an art form, Jadoon was quick to share just how hazardous it really is. \u201cAlmost once every two weeks, I get some injury or the other,\u201d the sculptor said, adding that this didn\u2019t include the many burns he receives every day. \u201cThat\u2019s how intense welding is; it\u2019s an intense, difficult process, but I enjoy it. My art may be difficult, but there\u2019s a novelty to it.\u201d<\/p>\n Inspired by the Bulgarian Ibex, this sculpture is made with old car parts, reclaimed tools and steel sheets.\n <\/p>\n Reminiscing about his first welder \u2014 who ended up teaching him the ropes \u2014 Jadoon said he needed silence to find his voice. He told me how communicating with his workman, who had hearing loss, led him to find not only a passion for the craft, but also a cause to work towards \u2014 uplifting people he worked with.<\/p>\n \u201cArt gives people a voice and these sculptures aren\u2019t just my voice; they\u2019re the voices of everyone who\u2019s worked with me on them,\u201d the artist told Images. \u201cI speak from my heart when I say that I respect [these people]; they work long shifts, without cover and rest, so my success is theirs as well.\u201c<\/p>\n The creative process<\/p>\n Jadoon said his process starts and ends in his head. For most of his ideas, he sees something and tries to picture it in metal. He then tries to recreate that image with scrap he finds. \u201cI\u2019ve always been interested in the strange and pretty things I\u2019d see around me.\u201d<\/p>\n After an idea comes to mind, the artist said he jumps straight into the work. \u201cI don\u2019t sketch these sculptures out and plan everything down to the last nail, I just get up and start welding.\u201d The process, he said, takes him an average of 2,000 to 3,000 hours per project. Each piece, he told me, is a reflection of his \u201cmental and emotional state\u201d at the time he created it.<\/p>\n Jadoon said his work was \u201cbigger and more complex\u201d than it appears on screen. His sculpture of a tree, for example, \u201chas a 25-foot radius and looks slightly different at every angle you view it from; there are 7,000 to 8,000 leaves and 10,000 to 15,000 branches, all made of metal\u201d. The T-rex has skin made of individually cut scales; the artist said he only painted half of the statue to reflect the duality of his emotions as he worked on the project.<\/p>\n Jadoon used individually cut metal pieces as scales to give his dinosaur a reptilian skin.\n <\/p>\n Spending 12 to 14 hours a day in his workshop, Jadoon is a bit of a workaholic. He told me he hasn\u2019t taken a single day off in over a year. \u201cWhen you\u2019re passionate, driven in your work, it\u2019s never a chore,\u201d he explained. When he isn\u2019t at his shop, a lot of his time at home is spent thinking about mistakes he made in his work during the day.<\/p>\n \u201cI make a mental note to correct those mistakes and I start the next day with those corrections. Every sculpture of mine, I\u2019ve made it, disassembled it, and remade it again till I was satisfied with it. This helps me learn. The lion sculpture, I remade [it] twice, I remade the dinosaur four times because I felt it could be improved.\u201d<\/p>\n When I asked about the scale of his work, Jadoon had just one word to describe his sculptures \u2014 \u201chuge\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe dinosaur is 22 feet in length, 12 feet in height and weighs about two tonnes; balancing all that on two legs took some amount of engineering. The rhino sculpture is so heavy, four to five people need to push it every time we move it around\u2026even my workshop floor has broken from the weight of these sculptures.\u201d<\/p>\n