Space and colour: Artist depicts complexity of human thoughts

Exhibition titled ‘To light…’ has work by NCA’s faculty member

LAHORE: The complexity of human thoughts and emotions has been depicted through space and colour in the work of Shireen Bano, on display at Zahoorul Ikhlaq Gallery at the National College of Arts at an exhibition titled ‘To light…’.

A graduate of NCA, Fyza Amir, who was present at the exhibition, said the use of wasli combined with bright colours attracts the viewer’s attention. Wasli is handmade paper used for miniature paintings. Fyza added the space in Bano’s work is uncluttered and inviting. “The language of expression is geometry while the circle within the square subtly implies the esoteric dimension within the exoteric,” she said, referring to one of her pieces.

By utilising the square to depict the physical work and the circle for the spiritual realm, she added, Bano’s work attempts to combine the esoteric with the exoteric.

“One can lose the sense of reality while moving from one picture to the other, but the mood [in her work] is light, playful and encompasses the powerful,” Fyza said. “Seen together, Shireen’s work reflects a window into her own soul, and yet it allows the viewer to engage with it from their own perspective.”

Another graduate of the college, Sana Qazi was of the view that  Bano’s paintings are a commendable attempt to grasp the ungraspable, take charge and to swirl and whirl in a systematic rhythm.

“They transcend in an almost mathematical order, through sections, certain divides shifting into the wholeness, the absolute, and the infinite”, Sana said.

According to her, the feeling of looking into Bano’s paintings was as if walking into spaces created within spaces, without any restrictions.

“It has no exits and it has no entrance, it is in transience,” she said. “One may enter as they please, undisturbed and with any condition.”

Bano’s work will remain on display till November 19 at the gallery. She herself is also a graduate of NCA and is a faculty member in the visual arts department of the college.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 13^th, 2016.