rom dust you are and to dust shall return. (Genesis 3:19)”

It now seems that, instead of soil, humans are destined to be buried, or enveloped, in plastic. “An average person ingests about 0.7 grams of micro-plastics (tiny plastic particles smaller than a grain of rice) every day, which adds up to a credit card’s worth of plastic every week.” The substance enters our bodies through eating, drinking and breathing. We are surrounded by it: cups, glasses, plates, spoons, shopping bags, chairs, toys, sanitary pipes and countless other everyday objects.

In Pakistan, plastic is routinely used to carry goods, collect food and store everything from fruits, vegetables, fresh milk, natural yoghurt, grains and cooking oils. In some towns and villages of Sindh, it is also used to store small quantities of liquor, as disclosed by an artist from Hyderabad. One tries hard to eliminate it, but how can a community so accustomed to covering everyday objects in thin layers of plastic be transformed? Plastic is used to protect objects, extend their life and preserve their re-sale value, from remote controls, laptop keyboards and casings and mobile phones to newly purchased car seats, home appliances and domestic furniture.

Plastic, more than protecting a product, creates alienation, a gap, a disjuncture between two entities. For example, one may have grown up operating TV remotes, messaging on mobile phones, working on computers, travelling in personal vehicles, adjusting the temperature on air conditioners and eating at dining tables, without ever touching them. One may believe in having a strong bond with all these things, but in reality, there is always a transparent yet unbreachable boundary: an invisible but invincible separation. Because of this characteristic, some years ago, students from privileged backgrounds at the National College of Arts were called plastic.

Khalil Chishtee, a graduate of the same institution, though decades earlier, in 1988, also employs this material in his art, particularly his sculptures. In his work included in Moving Ahead, the inaugural exhibition of the National Art Gallery, Islamabad, in 2007, thin layers of translucent plastic sheets formed human bodies. White in hue but skin-like in appearance, they resemble the survivors of the Holocaust, an atomic bomb explosion or a blazing site. This interpretation becomes more convincing when one notices holes in place of eyes in the sculptures.

In some of his new works, Chishtee has opted for a different, perhaps brighter, view of his surroundings, seen through the colourful, patterned and shimmering qualities of plastic. His exhibition, Nisbat Road to Troutman Street, at the Sanat Initiative (September 8 - 17, 2026), included paintings assembled from grocery bags, trash bags and kitchen bin bags. The number and size of the works suggest the time, determination and devotion Chishtee invested in collecting this mundane material, manufactured to be discarded soon after use.

This is not surprising, given that the artist is situated between two societies with contrasting attitudes towards a material introduced in 1907. Since 2009, he has lived in New York, on Troutman Street in Brooklyn, but he also belongs to Lahore, where he was born and lived in his family home on Nisbet Road, even after graduating and getting married. He has therefore been exposed to one society in which cling film covering an object is immediately peeled off, plastic wrapping is removed and plastic bags are disposed of, while originating from another culture that finds it difficult to get rid of shopping bags, instead tucking them away in drawers, under the kitchen sink and in cardboard cartons because “these will be of some use one day.”

By choosing a material that is equally visible in unequal hemispheres, Khalil Chishtee has created a blend of the self. Although none of the works resembles the artist’s features, they depict innumerable individuals who, like Chishtee, perpetually travel across continents in a split second by scrolling across the screens of their upgraded gadgets. The physical presence of a person in one place is no longer as important, since they can be seen, communicated with and reproduced in multiple forms anywhere.

Responding to this condition, Chishtee’s people, instead of being three-dimensional, are fabricated as flat figures and not just flat, but flimsy as well, given their origins in factories and their eventual destination in dustbins. Demonstrating a remarkable level of skill, he has rendered particular personalities, including David Hockney in Men with Brushes and a spinster looking sideways in A Neighbour. Other figures are recognisable by their roles: a masseur, a Lahori Pathan shoe-shiner holding the brush of his trade and the inhabitants of the artist’s twin worlds, the city of his childhood, schooling and art studies and the metropolis of his current home.

Thus, one discovers a group of people who, lacking adequate space at home, occasionally cordon off a street for a party (Block Party), while another crowd is engaged in the same activity (Block Party-2). A couple of white-bearded men stand next to each other in There Are No Shelves in the Closets, alluding to an area known for its gay population. In A View from Financial District Apt, a solitary man stands against geometric shapes that could be simplified versions of buildings, evoking New York City.

The other body of work can be traced to Lahore: figures in vests and dhotis; a masseur wearing a skull cap and a T-shirt printed with a Basquiat image, carrying bottles of oil; some standing idly, others signalling silence by sealing their lips with their palms or fingers. In a few pieces, particularly those that seem connected to the artist’s hometown, one detects glimpses of Anwar Saeed’s male figures. They are presented frontally, despite the noticeable difference in physique between the two types of men.

Khalil Chishtee’s men from Lahore are well-fed, with shaven heads, suggesting stereotypical images of shopkeepers, traditional wrestlers and small-time hoodlums. Whether from here or there, from observation or recollection, these human beings convey how a body, despite being healthy, active and strong, is composed of an ephemeral substance. Chishtee has, in an impressive manner, cut, distributed and pasted plastic as a substitute for paint. It is an example of up-cycling, in which a material destined for disposal is given prominence — and permanence.

This collection marks a shift in Chishtee’s art. Trained as a sculptor, he has worked with plaster, plastic, metal and mixed media, but this is the first time he has created two-dimensional imagery from plastic bags. He has explored beauty in objects that would otherwise go unnoticed, but even with the change in material and colour, a distinctive feature remains embedded in his aesthetic. One cannot fathom what compels the artist to introduce an extra element into his normally sober works: unnecessary segments that often push them towards the illustrative.

In the past, this was present in his generally sophisticated and much-exhibited figurative constructions made from plastic bags, some of which featured tiny birds perched on a shoulder. It is evident in the new works too, particularly in the extraneous gestures of people on the street, reminiscent of the excessive sentimentality found in local comedy theatre and Pakistani Urdu films.

On the other hand, his recent work, if read closely and beyond its dramatic effects, is a chronicle of the artist accumulating observations and experiences. His chosen material is particularly apt: plastic bags are intrinsically meant for gathering things, whether to be used or thrown away.

Likewise, Khalil Chishtee is collecting his visuals and concepts, if only he could discard the unnecessary ones.

The writer is a visual artist, an art critic, a curator and a professor at the School of Visual Arts and Design, Beaconhouse National University, Lahore. He can be contacted at [email protected].