Based in
Karachi, Pakistan
Mediums
Themes
Education
Acrylic, rose pigment, chalk pigment, gold leaf, gold flakes, and silver leaf on canvas
Identity, memory, metaphysical transformation, reincarnation, post-colonial legacy, impermanence
Indus Valley School of Art & Architecture, Bachelor's degree in Interior Design, 2019
Selected Exhibitions
2026: Poppy’s Ark x Daira, Pakistan
Rhizoscape: The Living Network exhibition in London will be showcasing some of this artist’s work from 19th February to 4th March 2027
Mikael Bhurgri
A visual artist tracing identity, memory, and reincarnation through luminous, spectral canvases
Mikael Bhurgri is a visual artist born and based in Karachi, Pakistan with roots from Mirpur Khas. He graduated from the Indus Valley School of Art & Architecture in 2019 with a Bachelor's degree in Interior Design, bringing over a decade of experience in architecture and interior design into his evolving artistic practice.
His transition into visual art is shaped by themes of identity, memory, and metaphysical transformation, most recently explored through the lens of reincarnation following a period of personal introspection in Quetta. Working primarily on large-scale canvases, his ethereal, half-remembered brushstrokes conjure the presence of what once was, emphasising the emotional and spiritual resonance of the past.
Bhurgri constructs visual narratives using native architectural elements, food, and light to build lived-in, abandoned yet luminous spaces, reflecting on transience, individuality, and the quiet presence of the sacred within the mundane realities of a country shaped by religious tradition, post-colonial legacy, and the pull of the global north.
By exploring the sensations ignited whilst maneuvering otherworldly spaces informed through dreams come forth via visual narratives of the past. The recurring theme of light inspired through divinity brings forth a new dawn on personal politics, on a domestic and societal scale. Inspired by art history, travelling through the yesteryears, Bhurgri investigates the intimacy between impermanence and the long-lasting presence of divinity.
Practice Themes
Architecture of Absence
The canvas becomes an architectural interior, where absence and light replace furniture. Bhurgri’s spaces are lived-in yet abandoned, carrying the emotional residue of those who have passed through them.
Memory in Transformation
Memory is not a fixed record, but a site of transformation. Through dreamlike domestic scenes and fragments of place, the artist traces how personal, familial and national histories continue to shape the present.
Sacred Impermanence
What appears abandoned may still hold the sacred, the luminous and the possibility of return. Bhurgri considers impermanence not as an ending, but as a condition through which divinity, renewal and reincarnation emerge.
Mikael Bhurgri’s practice sits at the intersection of memory, identity and post-colonial inheritance, mapping how personal and national histories linger in physical space.
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2026: Poppy’s Ark x Daira, Pakistan
The Works
Price: POA
Acrylic, rose pigment, and chalk pigment on canvas
2024
88.9 x 170.2 cm ; 35 x 67 in
A meditation on the fleeting nature of experience, this piece captures the tension between dusk and dawn. It reminds us that stillness and observation can be just as powerful as action.
— Soulful Diet —
Nourish your mind caressing your body whole,
Love with respect and hate without giving your all.
Our mind craves the rational heart,
Your body turns victim to this lifelong fall.
Wait like an animal does its prey,
Regardless of the sky depicting night or day.
Clear your vision of all the clutter up front,
Target beyond, follow like a mole does its mother,
Begin the hunt.
Understand the cycle of love,
Self-healing is far above,
All that you want and are going to see.
You are everything you want to be,
It's everything
Trust in your soul,
Heal yourself to what once was whole.
Our mother's womb protects us from this life,
We come into this world with no goal to strive.
We learn our nature as we trot along,
Gather all this information before the dangers of nightfall.
The stars shine misleading us through,
The crescent moon feels so Blue.
Look up to the sun,
Blind yourself with what man has done.
Learn to have faith in your process,
Know that nothing could ever feel as grotesque.
Wake up and stretch your fears away,
Let life breeze in through your window and allow yourself to sway.
There's been heartache for all,
The takeaway free for many to fall.
We never do dream to meet somebody like you.
Oh, would we be so lucky to receive the love through.
Promise yourself the love lifelong,
The gift of Happiness and regret of only one.
A cornerstone ever so gilded,
May love for yourself never go wilted.
Blossom in your house, the chambers of your heart,
The capability of your mind and the blind faith, for some above.
Fertilize your conscious with all that's prosperous,
Teach the lessons you've learned, never feeling burnt,
the times you've loved these walls,
Set your heart ablaze once and for all.
Price: POA
Acrylic and rose pigment on canvas
2025
116.8 x 177.8 cm ; 46 x 70 in
Inspired by post-colonial Karachi, this work draws from generational memory and cultural residue, unfolding through a dreamscape of the city's forgotten past.
— A Fantasy To regret —
I stood still till it all was no more
And I found Blame, our folklore.
I formed a greed of space
Next minute it was us who were displaced.
Here I am awaiting what is next,
Only to see how much of it was a mess.
Riding a high, soaring new heights,
I'm going and taking off on this flight.
I look from a window so fragile, so bleak
My body is changing without a heart indeed.
I stayed put on my raft for a year,
Looked down below to see the clouds ever so clear.
Feeling entitled, living my high
With an ego that has never been shy.
A time of withdrawal post addiction
With a world now ever so different.
Relations like rope, fibered in love,
They make me suffocate but fit like a glove.
Friends and family have always been dear,
This time round they don't feel as near.
Wishes turned to reality but selective by choice.
I laugh and cry but my sincerity has lost its voice.
Here I am with the curtains apart,
I now have no knowledge or way to go of.
I tried and was successful,
But this path wasn't as intent-full.
The time is now and my stop is here,
I'm trying to exit but at sight unclear.
I've come too far that I'm at my destination
Only to see utter emotional desolation.
Little did I know, that would be my last goodbye.
Here I am, regretting reality
After all life can never remain a fantasy.
Turn around and see who is there
If no one then find comfort in despair.
Here I stand in my foreign city,
The same home but just not as pretty.
I'm painting this picture that's never to be formed,
Longing for some meaning, I hope it doesn't take too long.
Price: POA
Acrylic, rose pigment, and silver leaf on canvas
2025
121.9 x 152.4 cm.; 48 x 60 in.
This work challenges the romanticisation of generational poverty, using food as a visual device to highlight stark class divides in contemporary Pakistan.
— The Last Course —
We gathered to dine, but fed on old wounds instead;
the bread grew cold while silence was passed from hand to hand.
Every plate was full, yet every heart arrived starving,
learning that a family can share a table without sharing itself.
The loudest voices were never the wisest—
they mistook whining for truth, and volume for virtue.
Grievances aged like heirlooms, polished and displayed each evening,
until resentment became the only recipe everyone remembered.
I watched the candles burn lower than our pride,
thinking how strange it is that a feast can leave a soul unfed.
Some inherit fortunes, others inherit arguments;
some leave with leftovers, others leave carrying generations.
So I learned this: not every table is an altar,
and not every home is built from walls alone.
Sometimes the greatest hunger is for a conversation that never came,
and the bravest thing you can do… is rise before the bitterness asks you to stay.
Price: POA
Acrylic and rose pigment on canvas
2024
116.8 x 177.8 cm ; 46 x 70 in
This artwork displays the unfortunate miscalculations we make each step of the way, with nobody to soothe the discomfort and the price we must pay. A journey in a house where each generation has slowly faded away leaving all the seats, once filled with compassion, now vacant. The beauty of a painful transition is showcased with the intervention of light and nature throughout a distraught time.
— Asylum —
This cage is wrapped in barb,
A sane mind tumbling down these steps hard.
Letting go of my ancestors heirlooms,
Making room for the new bridegroom.
The bars now cave in
Minds crushed and souls trapped within.
Our bodies lay in comfort, caged by emotions inn.
This mansion is like no other
It nurtures you, not like your mother.
It shelters you with false cover.
It makes you feel whole like your past lover.
This loss has made me realise
This world is beyond what we allow through our eyes.
Chin up and run but only to stumble again,
The war will caress you, captives live deep within.
Gnash your teeth,
Run like you don't need to breathe.
Take control of this rage
For your future is yet to be saved.
Shifting energies will make you deny
What all you've accomplished till it's time for another try.
A diet of hope, we can share with one another,
Something I've learnt from my dear Mother.
Strive for quality, don't settle for any mess,
You are your treasure, worth nothing less.
Your life is one, make it whole
Make this comeback, knowing how you fall.
Price: POA
Acrylic, gold flakes, and rose pigment on canvas
2024
182.9 x 91.4 cm.; 72 x 36 in.
This piece explores the tension between fate and free will, where a man-made structure surrenders to nature's quiet persistence. The stained glass nods to the divine, marking the unseen forces behind life's turning points.
— 9 Months —
Every morning is beautiful,
Only when you end the night grateful.
Our families and friends so important to us
Let's try not to make a fuss or unsettle the dust.
Open our heart for love is crucial
Let it make you feel, some might call it youthful.
The curtains drawn shut, now no vision
The illusion is perceived that this is my mission.
Happiness on a string, tied in front
You chase it but never to win the hunt.
The kind where adrenaline is bleak,
Lifeless being, turn the other cheek.
Look down at the ground,
Cracks now leave a frown.
Look beyond the sky
Understand that it is impossible to fly.
Earth will consume you whole,
You follow and flush your soul.
Hear it loud and clear,
Crash, Shatter and Explode in the near.
Your pulse is now a beat,
Give in and let go of me.
Our hearts fade into the deep,
Be patient, let the night creep.
Feel the life rush within your veins,
Pay attention to the fleeting sails,
Read deeply into the changing winds
Let it float you to life's many ends.
Feel the breeze graze against your skin
The winter cutting within.
Nothing will go away, yet a lot to come,
Be silent for life has already won.
Rebirth of a lifeless soul,
Yearning to feel warm and whole.
Give your all to love and stray from sin,
Must is this war and for us to be all in.
Price: POA
Acrylic, rose pigment, and silver leaf on canvas
2025
121.9 x 157.48 cm.; 48 x 62 in.
Between Bread & Bitterness
Fragile heirlooms preserved through the ages
A memory showcased on delusional stages.
Priceless possessions placed with thought,
Cracks forming from the acceptance we fought.
Thoughtfully placed your best china on the table
Rewriting but living a tragic fable.
Seated with your iniquities, look them in the eye,
Share with them your thoughts, refuse to speak a lie.
All these collections yet none speaking of the present.
Indulging in ignorance, wasting away your treasure.
Not gold nor crystals can ever redeem what is done
Only being humble can give your money a run.
Take only what you need
Look out the window and pay heed
To all the disparity be put in the limelight
All your sacrifices will be pleasant in hindsight.
Make room on your table for those who are not able.
Wash away all your pretence and help set the table.
Remove from your diet all things instilled
Help the lives that have not seen a hunger fulfilled.
Reach out your hand to the masses of this nation.
In good time you will see the true reason for your creation.
We will be made silent, our silver will begin to rust,
Your Mother’s fine china will be covered in dust.
We still gather to dine,
and the old complaints still find their seats before we do.
Some habits survive every generation,
arriving dressed as tradition.
How one honest smile can interrupt
a conversation rehearsed for decades.
Perhaps it is simply someone choosing
to pass the bread instead of the blame,
To pour another glass instead of another grievance.
Yet somewhere between the noise and the silence,
Peace arrives with a hint of violence
it begins with the one heart unwilling to become another echo.
Price: POA
Acrylic and rose pigment on canvas
2024
157.5 x 91.4 cm. 62 x 36 in.
–A Language Only Forests Understand–
The fence still wanders through the sleeping woods,
As though it never knew where boundaries stood.
It weaves through fern and weather-beaten pine,
Till every borrowed border is resigned.
The forest never argued over land;
Only we believed it could be planned.
We spent our lives believing
they were building forever.
Stone upon stone.
Dream upon dream.
Never noticing that eternity
belonged to the moss creeping beneath our feet.
Every abandoned home
is a monument to certainty—
a confession carved in timber,
admitting that everything we called mine
was only borrowed from the earth.
The wind still walks the rooms without a name,
No ash, no blame, no memory to claim.
It hums through broken rafters, soft and slow,
Where only roots remember what we know.
The trees keep no account of wrong or right;
They measure years by darkness, rain, and light.
So here they stand, two houses set apart,
Not just by distance, but the human heart.
The fence dissolves where ivy learns to climb,
The paths surrender quietly to time.
And somewhere, where the tallest branches nod,
The silence speaks the grammar taught by God.
For every wall returns at last to sod,
And every road grows humble before God.
The forest writes what pride could never frame,
Until the earth forgets our every name.
He finishes the sentence we began,
In a language only forests understand.
Price: POA
Acrylic and rose pigment on canvas
2024
91.4 x 55.9 cm.; 36 x 22 in.
— Look up —
Cold winds howl through the nest,
My mind is now entering a state of unrest.
Lightening creeps up on us next.
Thunder echoes through my shivering chest.
A force whispering loud voices in my head,
Telling me to remove these shackles and look ahead.
A mansion made with such vain intent
Built with love but now only remembered with dread.
I begin to look for meaning beyond,
In hope for family and not being too far-gone.
A lost soul stepped outside, stood in the rain,
Eery sounds heard, mostly of palm leaves swaying in vain.
We ran parallel to misery
Now merging into love, which was once history.
Will-power that is as proven as law
Now lays still in the rain like a hopeless fawn.
I refuse to acknowledge this state
Ending this chapter is no longer up for debate.
The clocks' hands are late,
Come and cradle me to my fate.
Price: POA
Acrylic, rose pigment and leaf on canvas
2025
40.6 x 40.6 cm; 16 x 16 in.
— The Weight of Scarlet Skies —
The city wore the sky like a furnace crown,
Where embers drifted softly, never settling down.
The towers held their breath beneath a crimson dome,
As if the sun had set the world itself to roam.
The pavements glowed with yesterday’s desire,
Each window caught the whisper of the fire.
No rain could cool what heaven chose to keep;
The clouds burned red, yet never learned to weep.
The weather weighed like iron on the soul,
A quiet blaze consuming every whole.
And still we walked through streets of molten light,
Learning some storms arrive disguised as bright.
For not all flames are born to turn to ash;
Some simply stain the heavens in a flash.
The fiercest skies are often those that yearn—
A city doesn’t fall; sometimes, it burns.
Price: POA
Acrylic, Rose Pigment & Leaf pigment on Canvas
2025
152.4 x 213.4 cm; 60 x 84 in.
— After The Last Footstep —
The city never learned to sleep,
it only learned to stay—
beneath tangled wires that softly hum,
beneath dust that won’t decay.
The roads still drag old, restless trucks,
with lives they do not know,
wooden frames and iron beds
from homes long left below.
The buses pass through empty heat,
their windows blank and pale,
while food stalls burn their spices bright
for mouths that will not sail.
A wedding stands in overgrowth,
its guests all turned to air,
white cloth now soaked in dust and dew,
no laughter anywhere.
The sacred halls still hold their breath,
incense that will not fade,
while ivy climbs the prayer-worn stone
in quiet green parade.
The buildings stand, but people gone—
their rooms hold fading light,
sunlight breaking through the cracks
of absence, soft and white.
And still the city will not die,
it pushes through the seam—
grass through roads, and roots through stone,
a slow returning dream.
Markets rust, and spices fade,
yet memory lingers on,
as rain rewrites what we once made
and turns it into lawn.
Perhaps we leave no grand remains,
no gold, no carved name-stone,
just vines through glass, and wind through halls,
and earth that claims its own.
For when we’re gone, the world won’t grieve—
it simply takes its due,
and writes our cities into green,
then starts the earth anew.
Price: POA
Acrylic and rose pigment on canvas
2024
147.3 x 88.9 cm 58 x 35 in.
— Goosebumps —
With shock of an existing afterlife,
I bury with me my mother's knife.
My father sits still unaware,
My Lord gives me the strength, never a question of unfair.
Everything in this process but grace.
If anything, nothing but personal space.
I intended not to be resentful
My emotional high has made me unsuccessful.
Couches in a home now seated with despair,
No flowers will ever smell like your hair.
Pour out this loneliness, quench your thirst,
blessed with greatness, the wicked still flirt.
Having lost our way to life's unknown,
Now I've stumbled upon a purpose far beyond.
I fear with reason but don't get me wrong,
I've done that for you for far too long.
Listen closely, my words are yet unsung
My fears closing in to almost none.
Pupils dilate with intoxicating agitation,
Fears feel as sinful as fornication.
Love prospers but fails in a realm so real,
Hope was never a guest nor waiting behind the veil.
Look in the mirror, let it reflect what is right.
Son of man, blossoming out of fright.
Success should be your only treasure.
Hold on to this wealth, use this for your measure.
Let them steal your misery, all will be gone in vain
and the rest, in stone, will be cleansed by the rain.
Price: POA
Acrylic and rose pigment on canvas
2026
40 x 40 cm.; 16 x 16 in.
–Hidden Beneath The Ivy–
I broke in places no one thought to see,
Like roots that died beneath a living tree.
The leaves stayed green a little longer still—
A beautiful disguise against the will.
The garden learned the language of neglect;
Each fallen branch became a new suspect.
The flowers kept their secrets in the ground,
Where every unanswered question still was found.
Anger grew like ivy over stone,
Convincing me that rage could stand alone.
It climbed the walls, it covered every door,
Until I couldn’t find myself anymore.
The shadows wrote in words I could not read,
Half-buried truths concealed beneath the weeds.
The darker every hidden sentence grew,
The more I feared the ones I knew were true.
I searched for someone else to bear the blame,
To carry all the ashes and the flame.
But grief is not a prison built by two;
It asks what kind of soul remains in you.
Then through the cracks where all my certainty bled,
A stubborn fern unfolded green instead.
It did not ask permission from the sky,
Nor question every reason it survived.
Perhaps all healing first appears this way—
A fragile thing beneath a world of gray.
Not loud enough to silence all the pain,
But brave enough to bloom despite the rain.
So let the forest keep what I have lost.
Let time erase the tally of the cost.
For even ruins, patient as they seem,
Are only gardens waiting to be seen.
Price: POA
Acrylic, rose pigment, and gold leaf on canvas
2026
218 x 152 cm; 86 x 60 in.
–When the City Learned to Kneel –
The engines slept with keys still in their veins,
Their silence louder than the loudest rains.
Red traffic lights kept preaching to the dead,
While vines translated all they ever said.
The avenues remembered every tire,
Still scarred by haste, ambition, smoke, and fire.
Abandoned cars stood patient, row by row—
As if they’d learned what people never know.
The towers watched with windows full of dust,
Their steel surrendered to the bloom of rust.
No voices rose to bargain, curse, or pray;
Even echoes had forgotten how to stay.
The weather carved its sermons into stone,
Reminding all that nothing’s ever owned.
The roots beneath the asphalt did not grieve;
They simply took back all we chose to leave.
We crowned ourselves with monuments of pride,
While Heaven watched in undisturbed silence wide.
When every tower bowed before the sod,
The ruins left enough room to hear God.
Yet somewhere, through a windshield split with time,
A single flower reached the morning climb.
It knew no triumph, carried not a creed—
It simply answered every buried seed.
Perhaps that’s how the gentlest futures start:
Not with a kingdom, but a quiet heart.
For every city swallowed by the wild
Becomes, at last, the earth’s forgiven child.
Price: POA
Acrylic, rose pigment, and gold leaf on canvas
2025
121.9 x 233.7 cm 48 x 92 in.
A reflection on self-politics and the weight of choice, this piece contemplates how disassociation allows us to witness our lives as a series of impermanent, converging decisions.
— The Shape of Conviction —
No one arrives untouched.
We inherit names before identity,
belief before curiosity,
answers before questions.
Then spend the rest of life mistaking borrowed certainty for personal truth.
Every choice feels free
until its roots are uncovered.
The teacher.
The wound.
The applause.
The rejection.
The invisible hands that quietly sculpt conviction while calling it character.
Perhaps the greatest illusion is not judgment,
but believing it belongs to us at all.
The soul does not travel in straight lines.
It circles through loss, temptation, grace and consequence,
collecting scars mistaken for failures,
and wisdom mistaken for chance.
Perhaps judgment is humanity's greatest illusion.
For no eye has ever seen the whole painting,
only the brushstroke
it happened to arrive before.
And when the final canvas is complete,
it will not ask who was right.
Only who dared to look long enough
to see themselves.
Price: POA
Acrylic, rose pigment, and gold leaf on canvas
2024
177.8 x 116.8 cm; 70 x 46 in.
A reflection on self-politics and the weight of choice, this piece contemplates how disassociation allows us to witness our lives as a series of impermanent, converging decisions.
May I Wonder?
Mid-summer with the sun out,
It’s the cold within that made me cry out.
I wonder what made you so sure.
When I always held open the door.
Was it denial or was it sanity?
As the curtains fall, proving it was all in vanity.
I wonder what gives you purpose to stay this true,
It’s getting cold for me but not as it is for you.
I can feel the strings being pulled,
Bound by emotions, life tangoes us through.
I wonder if we can adapt to the whip.
Be submissive now but feeling so unequipped.
Flow with gravity before it crushes you down.
Pray that whatever you fear will wash away without sound.
I ponder upon how could I not hear
The waves whisper so awfully near.
Place your hand over your mouth
Embrace yourselves, here comes doubt.
You’ll feel your gut drop
Praying for this clock to suddenly stop.
Struggling to make sense of now
Longing for what and how.
Cherish these wings, take them on a flight,
Don’t tie yourself down in this earthly life.
Nutritious should be your affection
Infectious should be your depictions.
Perfect perceptions within
Is a battle nobody against you, can win.
Price: POA
Acrylic, rose pigment, and gold leaf on canvas
2025
91.4 x 61.0 cm; 36 x 24 in.
— May I wonder? —
Mid-summer with the sun out,
It’s the cold within that made me cry out.
I wonder what made you so sure.
When I always held open the door.
Was it denial or was it sanity?
As the curtains fall, proving it was all in vanity.
I wonder what gives you purpose to stay this true,
It’s getting cold for me but not as it is for you.
I can feel the strings being pulled,
Bound by emotions, life tangoes us through.
I wonder if we can adapt to the whip.
Be submissive now but feeling so unequipped.
Flow with gravity before it crushes you down.
Pray that whatever you fear will wash away without sound.
I ponder upon how could I not hear
The waves whisper so awfully near.
Place your hand over your mouth
Embrace yourselves, here comes doubt.
You’ll feel your gut drop
Praying for this clock to suddenly stop.
Struggling to make sense of now
Longing for what and how.
Cherish these wings, take them on a flight,
Don’t tie yourself down in this earthly life.
Nutritious should be your affection
Infectious should be your depictions.
Perfect perceptions within
Is a battle nobody against you, can win.