Creativity at its best
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, colour or any other medium to a surface. The art of drawing and painting is a practice that began hundreds of years ago and is still valued and appreciated. This however, is not a simple task as creating a good artefact takes years to master. Trust us when we say creating art is not everyone’s cup of tea. Pick up a paper and try to paint using the shading technique and different kind of strokes. We bet you weren’t able to create an appealing image. The ones who actually managed to make a good painting should give themselves a pat on the back and realize that the talent they have is unique and are surely gifted. And those of you who failed to draw should understand by now that artists are worth every bit of the appreciation that they receive from the world.
Fortunately, Pakistan has numerous wonderful artists that are coming up with new creative works to contribute to the art world. Recently, an exhibition titled ‘Deconstruct’ took place at Full Circle gallery that exhibited the artworks put up by eight graduates of the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture. To deconstruct, in general terms, is to derive meaning out of the invisible. However, from the 40 works presented, it was clear that everything the artists ‘deconstructed’ was inspired by the daily struggles for survival in this city.
One of the works, by Marium Kamal titled ‘It’s just an explosion’ had a screen print and coffee stains on canvas with huge patches of it burnt off. This piece obviously depicted that the artist has been perturbed by the events that have shaped Karachi in recent times and at the same time is aware of its peaceful past. The textual form she opted for to express herself lent a verbal, somewhat bookish touch to the artwork. Another of her pieces was on a gargantuan canvas in shades of ochre with messages, such as ‘Karachi, my beauty you are just misunderstood’ and ‘Deep down inside it’s just another city’.
Sikander Butt also shattered the contemporary concepts of surveillance by introducing the crow in a Big Brother like scene in one of his creations called ‘Jhoot Boley Kavva Kaate’ (mixed media). The key thing here was the word ‘jhoot’. Sundus Talpur in ‘The Many Faces of Eve’ made a distorted face leaving it difficult for the viewers to understand. Her main aim was to make the audience understand that even though we all appear normal, the events of the city have left us distorted internally.
Qurutulain Qamar Chaudhry touched upon the vagaries of ‘time’ and placed it in the modern context while Mahmil Masood used consumerism as the main strand of her creative thoughts.
Azmeena Alladin on the other hand discussed the binary aspect of existence, that is, the two sides to each facet. While Syed Kashif Ali Mohsin nicely covered the socio-political uncertainty that the society is shrouded in through his ‘The Lost Page’ series (watercolour, charcoal and pastel on paper). The first one was a plain water colour painting of a man. The next three were water colours of the same man except those paintings had messages of bomb explosions and killings written in charcoal and pastel. The paintings were created as a series that aimed to tell the story of his novel; each painting developed the tale of the man in the first painting. “These are the kind of messages of sectarian violence and other killings that you receive from your friends,” he said. “The paintings describe the day of anyone who lives in this city.”
The last painting of the story, however, was a particularly grotesque yet intriguing image of just the protagonist’s head on the body of an insect. According to Mohsin, the painting was a hallucination that he had in the story where he saw himself as nothing more than an insect.
Overall the exhibition was breathtaking and had innovative work to offer to the public.
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