Degree Show 2017: NCA’s fine arts students showcase their artistic talent

Artworks on display include paintings, miniatures, prints, sculptures, videos and drawings

LAHORE: Admirers and enthusiasts of arts put the final layer to an art piece because their understanding and views make a work relevant and add value to it, reasserting the notion of art without boundaries or restrictions.

This was said by National College of Arts’ Fine Arts Department head Quddus Mirza while speaking at the inauguration of the annual degree show at NCA.

He said the work produced by 43 fine arts students this year confirmed the fact the endeavour of creating art was a passage from personal to public – a journey from the solitude of studio to the open arena of art world.

Mirza said the fine art department believed and practiced in holding a meaningful discourse with general public, so the art in place of being exclusive – or reclusive activity – assumed the position and prestige of being a shared experience. “This year’s degree show brings along this desire to communicate using multiple means, and a variety of voices,” he added. “Artworks created in the form of paintings, miniatures, prints, sculptures, videos and drawings reassert the notion of art without boundaries or restrictions.”



“Some of the prominent features and concerns in the works of our graduating students range from city to rural and from body to gender,” he remarked. “One comes across experiments with material investigation and issues such as identity, faith and politics.”

According to Mirza, artworks dealing with urban condition, perception of human anatomy, presence of pain, changing face of nature, and different narrative possibilities are part of this year’s display.

Along with this a major component of the Fine Art Degree Show 2017 is examining the act of art making by extending the views, notions and possibilities of genres. In his statement in the thesis booklet, NCA principal, Professor Dr Murtaza Jaffri said creativity is to imagine a solution and it involves curiosity, interest in society, culture, politics and the world at large.

He said that students at NCA be they architects, artists designers, sculptors, print makers filmmakers and musicians, are tutored in spirit of a holistic approach.

He added the foundation of all artistic development at NCA rests on the belief that all the arts are undeniably linked and supported by each other therefore a significant amount of exposure to each would reveal a student’s artistic process and their problem solving skills.

The exhibition also involves thesis presentations by seven other departments of NCA in the field of visual communication and design, ceramic design, product design, textile design architecture, film and TV and musicology.

The degree show, inaugurated by Dr Asif Kirmani on January 18, is being held at various studios and galleries of NCA from January 19 to February 3 2017.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 21^st, 2017.