Exhibition: Dreams and revelations of human pain

A two-person show opens at Khaas.

ISLAMABAD:

“Khawab aur Ilham”, a two-person show, works because one artist’s dissections of human tissue depicting the diseases that have taken over society create an interesting ambiance for the other artist’s life-size modelling of societal pressures.

The show, featuring Faisal Asghar and Ambreen Hameed, will open at Khaas Art Gallery on Wednesday (today).

What really attracts the viewer’s eye to Asghar’s work is the way the surrounding natural and social habitat affects an individual. The crows signify societal pressures and indoctrination that takes place within a set social cosmos. The use of mesh wire next to the face of an individual symbolises the barriers that keep the crow away, but in many ways, the crow clips through and infiltrates the individual’s personal space and whispers ideas that, in turn, churn the mind to create thoughts.

“All mortal beings abide by a rhythmic set patterns of different types happening in nature,” said Asghar, “My work is about how to deal with the permutations which are bound to happen in nature and the principles of the universe which are responsible for these permutations.”

Ambreen Hameed’s magnified Petri dishes show a “scientific evaluation of the internal adjustments within a human and the radical change he goes through over time.” She uses her work as specimen to depict the diseases taking over society. Her previous work solely focused on this idea; however, in her collection at Khaas, she adds an element of hope. She feels that the social evils that have weaved their way into our society can be remedied. She uses graphite, pen and ink on Lasani, a very hard textured material that is hard to mould.

The minimalistic nature of the work housed at Khaas at the moment shows that simplicity signifies beauty on its own. The show will continue till October 15.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 28^th, 2011.