Black and white: Seven emerging artists exhibit Monochrome Monologue

Variety of mediums displayed at paint bucket gallery.=

LAHORE: ‘Monochrome Monologue’, an exhibition by seven young emerging artists went on display at the paint bucket art gallery on Saturday. The artists displayed a variety of mediums including oils, acrylic, pen, ink, charcoal, photo transfers, etchings and aquatints.

Curator Anum Lasharie said the exhibition showcased work of handpicked artists all of whom had their distinctive individual techniques and choice of mediums, but what brought them together was their choice of colour palate.

Lasharie said an important goal of the exhibition was to showcase how much could be said using only black and white, with all artists presenting their very own monochrome monologues.

Amena Bandukwala’s work was about the contradiction in human behaviour and way of thinking.

“We are programmed to think within societal limits, while our mind contains the frivolous free-thinking spirituality that makes us who we are,” she said.

While Shameen Arshad’s work titled ‘It’s made of flesh’ was a commentary on the loss of individuality and the irony of still considering ourselves superior. Elaborating, Shameen said her work was inspired by the ability to make rational decisions rather than following instincts, which was the core argument to prove human ingenuity.

“The point at which we stop thinking for ourselves and instead become a product of other people’s opinions is the point where we lose our status as a social animal and are reduced to simply being a cog in a machine,” she said.



Farrukh Adnan’s work was inspired by the urge to wander around and explore his home town in terms of space and time. “My interest in wandering pushes me to explore and investigate socio-political and cultural aspects of space (Tulamba) through my art,” Adnan explained.

On the other hand, Haider Ali Akmal’s work was inspired by a feeling of nostalgia.

“At the core of each emotion we feel lies the need to go back towards something,” adding that his work was about a very intimate relationship with oneself and about understanding the many vibrations of time. Inspired by the process of transition, Faraz Aamer said he believed his work would always be in transition because of his own nature and owing to the experimentation he did with different mediums, be it charcoal, pigment, wood, steel or vibrations (music). “While my seascapes and cloudscapes have simple imagery and various shades of black and grey to them, often allowing no more than a single shade of colour to enter its realm, they act as my own self-reflection and for others they act as mirrors”.

Finally, artist Zahrah Ehsan said her work was inspired by a sense of longing for what was perhaps impossible, adding that she used surface beauty, patterns and flowers to hold her constructed reality together.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 24^th, 2016.