Solo show: No last word

LAHORE: Seeking the Unconscious—a solo exhibition featuring the work of Anila Zulfiqar commenced on Friday at the Hamail Art Gallery.

The exhibition features over 30 oil-on-canvas pieces. Zulfiqar said memory and imagination lined with conscious and unconsciousness was what had inspired her to paint. She said an idea was always present in the mind. Zulfiqar said a pure idea was situated in the unconscious mind. She said the creative process could unleash one’s unconscious vision.

“My work documents my experiences. It creates a relationship between art and life,” Zulfiqar said. She said colours constituted a significant part of her work. While the structures depicted in her work were simple, Zulfiqar said, their hoardings rendered a colourful feel to it.

“In my work, hoardings alongside antiquated buildings depict a contemporary trend. This brings forth a combination of the old and the new. The wires veering towards different directions create movement in it,” she said.

The artist said she used rich colours and thick layers of paint in her work. This, she said, gave it an array of different textures.  “Usually, I apply thick brush strokes on some places to highlight the centre of interest.  Detecting light, mood and atmosphere is the preeminent feature of my work,” Zulfiqar said.

Academic Rahat Naveed said the artist had a spiritual and emotional connection with the Walled City where she had spent her formative years. Naveed said she had extensively explored the theme over the years. The academic said it seemed that there was still room for more on this account.

She said Zulfiqar’s work was pulsated with dabs and dots. Naveed said this conveyed the trademark hustle and bustle of the area. This, she said, was a visual delight. Naveed said her work powerfully conveyed the need to treasure this heritage jewel.

Punjab University’s (PU’s) College of Art and Design Principal Shahida Manzoor said the artist’s impressionistic strokes engendered a sense of vigour and energy. Manzoor said she tended to decipher the real world to visualise emotions and the subconscious. “She progresses from form to form developing successive layers of concealment through layers”, she said.

Cartoonist Shaukat Mehmood said the artist’s work was the art of painting the unreal and peculiar using images from the imaginary world. Her art epitomises obscurity, he said. “Painter Salvador Dali was intrigued by images occurring at the boundary between sleep and wakefulness. He employed various ways to capture these bizarre images,” Mehmood said. He said Zulfiqar’s work seemed to have taken the aforementioned artist’s work a step further. Mehmood said her craft started where Dali’s ended. “I might be wrong in comparing Dali with Zulfiqar but there is no final word in research, literature, painting and imagination,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 8^th, 2016.