The purity of paper has always delighted Toofan Rafai. At times it was the smear of paint but mostly it was the shredding and reorganizing of paper which offered him the therapeutic sense to placate his compulsive creative nature.
A diploma holder in drawing and painting from the Sir JJ School of Arts, Bombay, 1965, his inclination to indulge in the pure/fine arts are older than his profession of dying and printing. Eighty odd years now, Rafai, composes surprises in the form of collages and drawings. Having retired as Assistant Director of the Weavers' Service Centre which is affiliated to the All-India handloom Board, Government of India, he took time off his usual schedule to paint and mostly create mixed media works.
Tearing pieces of paper and gluing them to form a semantic of his milieu, Rafai has this incredible energy of a tempest (Toofan), to create semblances of images which are earthy yet fictitious. His sharp and sumptuous human forms might appear sharp and naive but are actually controlled and a new dimension integrates a special anatomy to a very appealing decorative.