Young hands, deft touches and multiple genres

Brushsmiths from all over the country invited to hone their practice

LAHORE: After a week-long residency programme, artworks of 13 young artists spanning multiple genres were put on display at Tasweer Ghar.

Artists from all over the country were invited to the platform to focus on honing their practice.

Tasweer Ghar is a cultural space that supports creativity and experimentation through young minds and was founded by Rabbania Sharjeel.

The participating artists explored multiple genres and their own unique styles of art mediums.





One of the artists, Sirrah Ali says she creates abstract art pieces inspired from her inner feelings which are evoked by situations and experiences throughout her life. “Great family moments, career experiences, travelling adventures, local and world events as well as my very inner thoughts are the feelings that I use to create each abstract paintings.”

She says the visual imagery in which she is involved simply depicts her everyday life through textures, colours and shapes. “Colours and shapes play a vital part in my paintings. They assist me in depicting the story I am trying to narrate.”

According to Ali, layers of paint help her form a nostalgic relation with memories that have an everlasting impact on her life. Her aim is to preserve them with her own perception or gestural painting style. “These paintings vary in scale with the variation in memories associated with my own life.”

Faisalabad-based visual artist Javeria Ahmed’s work has evolved from a focus on displacement, migration, memory and dwelling spaces to women and the marriage culture in Pakistan. According to Javeria, her current work is about the marriage culture and humiliation faced by women single, married, divorced or widowed.

Ahmed’s art deals with the fake standards while looking for prospective girls for arranged marriages in which prospective brides are rejected often. She says that such experiences become their worst memories, shattering confidence and personalities. “My work tends to speak about the emotional abuse faced by women and how we as a society appreciate or adapt to it.”

For Ahmed, highlighting the causes and effects of this tradition is the core aspect of her art.





Artist and photographer Feroza Gulzar, who was born in Quetta and did her graduation in fine arts from Karachi, takes inspiration from her passion to travel.

Speaking about her work, Gulzar said she has been using letters and photography to tell small, fragmentary stories emerging from her experiences in different places. “I also use mirrors to suggest what I perceive as movement, often disorienting and destabilising, of still objects through the various pasts that infuse the present, and to reveal feelings and emotions accumulated in objects and environments over time through their silent participation in the human drama,” she explained.  She says her photographs intend to evoke nostalgia of the past which underlies present moments.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 2^nd, 2017.