Irfan Zahid

Drawing, for me, is an act of paying attention. It is how I make sense of the world and of my place within it. To draw is to truly see—to notice what most people pass by—and to preserve moments that would otherwise disappear. Every sketch is an act of witnessing before it is an act of making.

For more than two decades, I have carried a sketchbook wherever I go. I draw from direct observation, whether I find myself at a wedding, a funeral, a birthday celebration, a restaurant, an airport, or simply waiting for the day to unfold. These are not staged scenes or imagined compositions. They are fragments of lived experience, quietly collected over a lifetime. Together, they form a visual archive—not only of the places I have been, but of the person I have become.

My drawings were never created for the marketplace. I have never relied on commissions, nor have I built a practice around regular exhibitions or gallery sales. Most of this work remains unseen, existing first as personal records rather than public objects. When a drawing does leave my studio, I hope it finds someone who understands that they are not simply acquiring an image, but becoming the custodian of a lived moment.

There is one promise I can make to anyone who collect...

Bachelors of Design. National college of arts, Lahore. Pakistan