Multimedia exhibition: Artworks portray hustle and bustle of daily lives

Three Lahore-based artists display their work at Satrang

A multimedia exhibition of artworks, In My Own Corner, by three Lahore-based artists, portraying their interaction with the world around them and to understand the commotion of their daily lives, is going on at the Satrang Gallery.

“These artists are young, extremely cutting-edge who seek to convey the solitude brought on by a fast-paced world where contemplation and introspection are crucial and yet bewilderingly easy to fall prey to,” Satrang Gallery Director Asma Khan said.

Faizan Naveed, one of the artists exhibiting his work, told The Express Tribune that he personally enjoys using the camera. “The camera is a medium that has a great association with documentation and very few artists realize that a photograph can be used for painting. Through my work, I am trying to mock miniature because miniature is assumed to be the highest form of art in Pakistan and even though that may be the case a few years ago, things are changing and artists are progressing to use various other mediums for art today”.

He further said that he has used the camera and photographs to create a blend of cultures through the attire of the woman in one of his art pieces. “This is my attempt to show a blend of cultures too,” he added.

Sufyan Baig, on the other hand, firmly believes that art has more to do with perception than what the artist tries to create. “I particularly enjoy it when my audience tries to understand my work according to their own perception, interpretation and comprehension, and, therefore, I encourage people to tell me what they think of my work but if you ask me as an artist I try to think about my surroundings and the psychology of people working around me and how they think”, he said.

Sufyan, who has also displayed his work in Surface Gallery, Nottingham, is particularly noted for working in New Media and Digital works especially video. His art pieces are featured print on ceramic plates.

Omer Wasim, who has a BFA in Interdisciplinary Sculpture and an MA in Critical Studies from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, Maryland, USA, said his focus is on visual culture, with a particular view toward how the visual vocabulary of artists changed to map the repercussions of the AIDS epidemic. “I make work not by denying or erasing what came before, but by reading, rereading, and transforming what was most valuable from the past. I seek to translate what I read into new works that aspire to undermine conventional hegemonic perceptions/representations of identity, desire, and living in urban spaces. For me, this involves an unconventional investigation of companionship, geographical dislocation and subsequent relocation, rather than calling upon usual and immediate signifiers,” he said.

Satrang Curator Zahra Khan said that the onslaught of information that we are constantly confronted with often requires creative ways to process. “The artists in this exhibition present artworks, which convey a necessity for a personal identity in order to remain on par and involved with one’s surroundings. These artists are trying to soak in as much as possible before reformatting their impressions, at times critical of the world around them and at others, confused by its peculiarities,” she added.

The exhibition is ongoing till February 10.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 28^th,  2016.