Resonating colours: ‘Summer Moods’ showcases women from different backgrounds

Artwork features paintings, calligraphy and print works.

ISLAMABAD: A group exhibition titled “Summer Moods” featuring paintings, calligraphy and print works went on display at Nomad Art Gallery on Thursday.

The artwork displayed in the exhibition showcase women from different backgrounds and lifestyles, painted with oil on canvas. Some of the work also represents the Mughal era through mixed media, which blends in various techniques.

One of the artists, Samina Ali Akhter, employed a variety of techniques like calligraphy, sketching and painting that blended together to create stunning pieces of art. Akhter said that she has always been interested in the harmony between space and form with collages and calligraphy woven together. “Being appreciative of Islamic history, it’s hard to imagine not using the long-lost stories which are enclosed in books or museums. To remain in touch with the past is to keep history alive, lost images in time resonating through a flow of vibrant colours and textures,” she said.

Another artist, Sumera Jawad, whose work depicted women, explained that an artist reveals or unveils the world from an angle that the world itself does not present openly. “Above all, the artist is someone who exposes a personal vision by rendering it visible. I don’t like painting people if I don’t know anything about them. I do a lot of reading before I start.  My work always moves around females and their lives,” she said.

MA Bukhari employed a technique of blending Arabic calligraphy with various other compositions into layers of oil canvas. Each work acquires sharply delineated aesthetic-decorative depth and swells each letter and work as a whole, making his “Ism-e-Azam” more enjoyable for those who relish the grace and beauty of the Arabic script.

Tayyaba Aziz, one of the artists featured in the exhibition, describes herself as an abstract cubo expressionist. “Time is what keeps everything from happening at once. We always compare our present experiences to our dim memories of past experiences. I show psychological time in a complex manner, entangled in a drapery of past experiences,” she said.

Anjum Ayub said her paintings are a reflection of her life as a woman. “My work tends to reflect a contemplation of life through a lens that has been sharpened by maturity, motherhood and lengthy relationships with me and others. Happiness is actually my work. The works of art I create are the by-product of my consistent devotion to the act of focusing on the wonderful bounty all around me,” she said.

The exhibition is ongoing till June 30.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 18^th, 2016.