At Sunder Nagar, a tightly held exhibition tracks how a single element has shaped decades of practice

At Sunder Nagar, Yusuf’s lines stretch, gather, and hold their ground across paper, canvas, and metal. Line as Witness, presented by Sanya Malik’s Black Cube Gallery with Shantanu Sharma, brings together works made over several decades without arranging them into a neat before-and-after. The hang is deliberate but unforced, allowing earlier and later works to sit alongside each other without hierarchy.

Line As Witness: Yusuf and the work of the line

“The title Line as Witness emerged from a close engagement with Yusuf’s practice, where the line does not merely construct form but registers presence, duration, and attention,” Malik and Sharma say. The phrasing is direct and useful. It places the line closer to an act than an image, something that records rather than describes.

Yusuf’s own words are even plainer. “When a point moves, a line is drawn.” The sentence holds. It explains the work without closing it down. A line begins in motion and carries that movement with it.

Across the paintings, lines repeat in ways that are neither decorative nor rigid. Some spread outwards, loosening the surface. Others gather into denser formations, holding the space in place. The shift between these states is gradual. Nothing announces itself too quickly.

The exhibition avoids a chronological sequence. Instead, works are grouped by how they relate to each other. “Pieces from different periods were placed in dialogue with one another where they shared a similar energy, tension, or sensibility,” Malik and Sharma explain. The decision keeps the focus on what the work is doing rather than when it was made.

Yusuf has spent years working through the same element without settling it. “A line appears to be infinite and limitless, having no definite beginning or end point. It extends endlessly in space,” he says. In the work, this comes through quietly. Lines seem to continue beyond the edges of the surface, as if the frame has cut into something larger.

Forms begin to appear within these fields, though they do not resolve into clear images. A shape might suggest a ridge of land, or something cellular, or something remembered and altered over time. Yusuf does not push these readings. They remain open.

There is a discipline to how these forms are handled. “When an artist creates a shape using the line, it is the line that gives it a definite shape — ending all other possibilities,” he says. The act of drawing fixes something, even as it leaves other options aside.

At the same time, the work does not lean towards completion. “The lines in my paintings are not complete, nor are they secondary. They have neither a clear beginning nor an end,” Yusuf notes. The line holds its place without needing to arrive anywhere final.

Material matters here. Ink on rice paper allows little correction, so each mark carries weight. In the sculptural works, line moves into structure, though it keeps the same sense of tension and movement. The shift in medium does not settle the question. It changes how it appears.

“For me, lines are like vibrating strings,” Yusuf says. “At a certain frequency, their vibration decides whether it will become mass, energy, matter, or force.” The description may sound abstract, though it reflects something visible in the work. The surfaces do not sit still. There is a sense of ongoing movement within them.

Malik and Sharma return to this when they speak about observation. “His lines do not describe in a conventional sense; they seem to observe, to hold within them a record of gesture and time.” The idea of observation suggests a steady attention, without forcing the work into a fixed meaning.

Yusuf, born in Gwalior in 1952 and based in Bhopal, has worked across painting, drawing, and sculpture for decades. He has shown widely and received major awards, though none of that is foregrounded here. The exhibition keeps its focus on the work itself.

Seen together, these works show how much can be done with very little. A line can measure space, hold a movement, and define a form. It can also leave things unresolved.

Line as Witness runs from 29 March to 11 April 2026, from 11am to 6pm, by prior appointment. Entry is free.

What: Line As Witness a solo exhibition by Yusuf

When: March 29 - April 11|11 am – 6 pm

Where: Sunder Nagar, New Delhi

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