KARACHI: Fakeero Khemoom, who belongs to a family of Hindu sculptors, took the art of his ancestors to another level in the 1990s by creating statues, busts and portraits of global personalities who he thought had left a deep imprint on human history.
By the time his clay statue of Benazir Bhutto, the first woman prime minister of the Muslim world, became popular on social media platforms, his magical hands had already created sculptures of people like Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy, Ernesto Che Guevara, Abraham Lincoln, Guru Nanak, Vladimir Lenin, Karl Marx, Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Abdul Sattar Edhi.
Fakeero Khemoom can be seen standing with the sculpture of Pakistan’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, in this undated photo. (Photo courtesy: Fakeero Khemoon)
“Benazir Bhutto was a great woman,” Khemoom, more popularly known as Fakeera Fakeero, said while talking to Arab News on phone from his hometown of Tando Allahyar in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province. “She became a role model for women across the world. So it was for my own happiness that I decided to build her statue.”
“I started working on [sculpture] in the middle of the last month [of June],” he continued. “It will take another month to get its final shape.”
An undated picture of a portrait of Abraham Lincoln made by Fakeero Khemoom. (Photo courtesy: Fakeero Khemoon)
40-year-old Fakeero has got his skill from family elders. His grandfather, Bhekharam, made statues of Hindu gods and adorned temples before Pakistan’s independence. “It was our family art during the days of united India,” he said, adding: “I was only ten years old when I started working with my grandfather and father who were both masters at this.”
After getting his primary and intermediate education from his hometown, Fakeero decided to concentrate on his work in 1996 and gave it a new direction.
“I decided to take this art beyond religion frontiers and started making statues of famous personalities,” he said. “Art has no religion and resonates with everyone. It’s about humanity.”
Although he continues to make statues of Hindu gods with similar religious zeal as his elders, Fakeero says that Pakistan and humanity come ahead of everything else for him. It is for the same reason that he has been making sculptures of important global personalities.
An undated picture of a sculpture of Allan Fakeer made by Fakeero Khemoom in the 1990s. (Photo courtesy: Fakeero Khemoon)
His first such creation was Allan Fakir, a Pakistani folk singer from Sindh, in the 1990s. “Since then I have created over 350 sculptures and portraits,” he said.
Fakeero has exhibited his work at several art galleries around the world. He uses materials like clay, wood, plaster of Paris, fiberglass, stone and plasticine to bring his artistic creations to life. He also holds the credit of introducing new varieties of sculptures in the country which, he says, blend Indian and European art. “To this day, I am the only one in the field who has gone for such fusion,” he said.
An undated picture of a sculpture of John F. Kennedy made by Fakeero Khemoom. (Photo courtesy: Fakeero Khemoon)
Fakeero could not get formal education as an artist, but he does not have any regrets.
“Many people ask me where I was trained as an artist. When I tell them that I didn’t go to an art school, they get surprised,” he smiled.
Fakeero has, nevertheless, been invited to various education institutes, such as the National College of Arts, to share his knowledge of the craft with students. While he enjoys such interactions and goes out of his way to mentor others, he constantly chalks out his own work plans as well.
“After completing Benazir Bhutto’s sculpture, I’ll make [Dr. Muhammad] Iqbal’s statue who envisioned this country,” he said.
