Dare to Dream: Artworks reflect identities through time

Group exhibition features works of 15 emerging artists

LAHORE: A group exhibition featuring artworks of 15 emerging artists reflecting the identity of the self through the passage of time is under way at Zulfi Art Gallery till April 25.

The show titled ‘Dare to Dream’ features the work of recently graduated young artists and some still studying at different universities, Curator Nida Khan tells The Express Tribune.

“Young artists do not find many opportunities and are often discouraged to showcase their work at platforms like these,” she said. “We wanted to make a statement against this trend. Hence, the title ‘Dare to Dream’.”

Recently graduated from National College of Arts as a print maker, Amna Suheyl’s work is based around memories and nostalgia, derived from personal family archives and stories of migration.

Working with the idea of migration as a point of departure for exploring transience, the artist focuses on recreating an imagined past, through observation of recorded histories and evidence, using figure with negative space.

“Use of black and white is the recurrent theme for most of my work,” she explains. “I work in mezzotint, which is a technique of erasing the surface and then using white as basic colour of expression, which then overpowers the black surface.”

According to Amna, the figures depicted in her work are taken from family photographs and juxtaposed with her idea of dreams and nostalgia.

Sana Saeed’s art deals with the idea of preservation as a way of recording the history of identity. She has captured traces and marks found on surfaces, treating them as objects of location for the past and people.



Painter Kiran Waseem’s work revolves around the idea of passing time and how it becomes history. Her work is reflective of the human experience as a transient being, where she paints hazy landscapes seen from a moving vehicle as a metaphor for memory, and its intermingling with one’s own imagination.

“My art process includes multiple layers to create a certain motion by putting paint on a glossy surface (aluminium) which fades away its glistening quality,” Kiran says. “I am fascinated by the way one is unable to tell where the memories end and imagination starts. When I travel my memories travel with me and my work holds that same hazy quality, both in its process and outcome.”

Artist Kausar Iqbal’s work called ‘Elephant Series’ is about challenging notions and first impressions that can be wrong.

“Using elephants, which are generally friendly and communicative animals, as a metaphor with my own soul, I have tried to challenge the impression or rather misconception people take from the Pakhtun people, who are usually considered restrictive and rigid,” he says.

Considering the current political realities of FATA, Kausar says such impressions against Pakhtun are being propagated all the more than before, and her artworks are an argument against these false impressions.

“The elephant figures depicted with a tree originating out of its body stems from hybrid concept, which denotes that anything can be good and bad at the same time and nothing can be define in totality,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 23^rd, 2017.