Initially Farrukh Shahab was primarily interested in portraiture; in 1990 he was awarded a Gold Medal from the Sindh Artist’s Exhibition, and in 1995 was accorded the top honours at the Quaid-i-Azam Portrait Exhibition held in Karachi.

Farrukh visited Paris and London, visiting museums and meeting artists before joining the Art Students League in New York. His work was shown at the Montague Gallery in Soho, New York.

Returning to Karachi, Shahab painted portraits, buildings and landscapes, and also created paintings in the style of the Romantics for stately houses. His work is in the World Bank Washington, and the Karachi Governor’s House.

Exhibitions in New Delhi, gave the opportunity to see some of the ancient treasures, and his impressions were later expressed in an Abstract linear style with references to Cubism. He has considerable experience of the exhibition circuit in solo and group shows in Karachi, Lahore, New Delhi, Hong Kong and London, and is currently focused on his mature development in art.

“A canvas, an easel, brushes, paints - tools of a painter. Smells of paints and turpentine, all create a strong, seductive aroma in my studio, my kingdom. Here I play my game by my rules. I paint. To my heart’s content until I am able to express my feelings, my emotions, my pain, my pleasure, my agony, my ecstasy. I am in total control or so I believe until my creation blossoms into a life of its own and takes over; a life that soon becomes an extension of my very own existence. I let myself drift and soon my ability, my conscious self, subconsciously takes me to new dizzying heights of art and self expression. Through my paintings I lay bare my soul, my being, my reason for living. Slowly, I pick up the missing pieces, start learning the secrets of a painter’s language and, when my art is noticed, appreciated, exhibited, the doubts, the nightmares that lurk inside me while I paint, wither away, vanish. I am rejuvenated, reborn, recharged. Only to plunge again, in the icy but enticing ocean of art.”  -  Farrukh Shahab