A collage of imagination-based art
By: Anil Datta
Karachi: It looked as the most unlikely venue for an art exhibition, a locality which by all accounts was derelict, in the most rundown quarter of the town, inhabited by simple countryfolk from one of the provinces upcountry, with the pristine culture of that province so very visible all over. The actual venue was a heritage stone building, a warehouse.
However, once inside it, it was quite a different story from what one saw on the outside. The walls of the art gallery, with its late nineteenth century interior, were adorned with paintings by a group of young artists. An additional feature was the installation art with a vintage sewing machine wrapped in strips of coloured cloth.
This machine, according to the artist Akbar Ali was supposed to be representative of globalization with each colour of the strips representing different religions and cultures.
Similarly there was another piece of installation art by Sikandar Asghar, a geometrically designed collection of ceramics of different colours combined into one whole, which according to the artist, was supposed to represent the oneness of God Almighty.
As for the paintings, there was one by Nida Syed titled, “Make me weirder” and true to its title, it was weird and scary, a snarled, distorted face in expressionist art as if the devil were trying to scare one out of his wits. Unlike the works of the above-mentioned two artists, Saturday evening’s exhibition was titled, Diversity.
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