Thousand faces of feelings, emotions
By: Ahtesham Azhar
KARACHI: The Full Circle Gallery presents a colourful solo exhibition titled ‘Thousand Faces of Eve’ by Raja Changez Sultan with Guddo Haider as curator.
The show, Sultan’s 53rd, boasts 26 paintings of women’s faces, which successfully grab the attention of a large number of citizens. The artist has kept the focus of the viewer on the ‘feelings and emotions’ that are persistent on all the faces in the paintings. The exhibit has attracted a large number of art enthusiasts from around the city. His paintings are an invitation for a keen observer to look and speculate at the hardships women face all around us.
In an untitled painting of a woman, the artist used dark orange, with soft strokes, giving a blurry effect that emphasised the feelings of the subject. The viewer is able to see the sadness or pain on the face.
Another painting, depicting five women, illustrates a candlelit scene, on a dark green background and a moon. The colour green accentuates the feelings of agony and complements the composition.
The artist has portrayed all the women in pain, including one in a white dress. The painting titled ‘Thousand Faces of Eve’ is about a woman in a light blue dress, with long tresses, wearing a deeply thoughtful expression.
Sultan has painted some smiling women; however, the eyes of the subjects remain sad, no matter what they wear or appear to be wearing. Using the blurring technique, the focus has once again been kept on the ‘unseen’.
Be it the paintings from his series of the ‘Divided Self’ or the ‘Himalayan Odyssey, the ‘Wood Nymphs’ or the ‘Birds of Paradise’, there is a unique element of timelessness and a serenity that is all pervasive in Sultan’s work.
Invariably a hint of light defines a face in the distance or the ridge of a mountain, but the search is always for the intangible, for the mystery cloaked within
us, or in nature.
This series celebrates the moods and nuances of women as visible in their faces. It is based on the premise that the pain of each one of them is no less than that of Eve.
Both, an acclaimed poet and painter, his figurative work is graceful, his faces intense. They compel the viewer to see beyond the obvious mists and veils that shroud them.
“Each one of us is a composite of so many people rolled into one. I explore this dimension of the human psyche in the ‘Divided Self’ series while in the ‘Himalayan Odyssey’ I explore the spiritual realm of our great mountain ranges where time and space stand still,” Sultan says.
Talking to Daily Times, Gallery Manager Kashif Humayun said that we can find different colours in his paintings, indicating the message in a very strong medium. “The common thing in his painting was depth and sensitivity with the theme of the series,” he said, adding that a person could recognise his work even from a distance.
An artist of universal appeal, Sultan has also served as the director general of the National Council of the Arts. A versatile artist and a poet with a flare, he began writing poems as a teenager. His first poem inspired the ‘Divided Self’.
“When you look in the mirror do you see your image or an image of your image, or does your image see you, or, an image of you?”
The exhibition will continue till March 29.
Source: Daily Times
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