Not for sale: Painter Seher Naveed refuses to compromise on self-expression

The artist has painted the walls of the IVS gallery, depicting containers used for blocking roads.

KARACHI: Contemporary artists have to compromise their self-expression and bow down to the pressures and constraints of the art industry, referred to as the 'art establishment'.

Artist Seher Naveed refuses to do just that, said curator Hajra Haider Karrar on the second-last day of the exhibition, titled 'The Walls', at the Indus Valley School (IVS) Gallery on Tuesday.

Naveed has painted the walls of the IVS gallery in grey and green colours, depicting the walls as container, a symbol that has become a description of the local urban landscape.

Using containers as a popular image in her solo show, Naveed said the idea is to encourage and experiment the contemporary art scene. "Containers, which were once symbols of cargo and transportation, are now labels for blocking roads," Naveed told The Express Tribune.

With the walls of the gallery to be repainted to their original colour at the end of the exhibition, Naveed has sent a clear message that not all art is for sale.

Lamenting the local art scene, Karrar said that governments across the world provide subsidies to galleries and art forums so that the work of art does not get compromised. "Since the state's support is there, artists don't have to be conscious of the market," she said.

She also commented on the political symbolism of containers. "Instead of saying that roads have been 'blocked' by containers, it is simply said that 'containers laga diye gaye hain' [containers have been placed]."

Published in The Express Tribune, January 28^th, 2015.