'Saat Kahaniyan – Aik Sath' brings stories to life

The "Saat Kahaniyan, Aik Sath (Seven Stories, Together)" brings together seven artists working within the Indo-Persian miniature tradition, each now pulling that inheritance in a different direction. The artists are Ali Gilani, Bakhtawar Naqvi, Hifza Khan, Onaiz Taji, Ramsha Rubbani, Safwan Bashir and Samreen Asghar. The exhibition has opened at Gallery 6 Islamabad.

Discussing the show, curator Sadia Gul stated that painting has always been a discipline of restraint before it is one of detail. "The wasli, the hashiya, and the fine kalam line are all inherited rules that each artist in this exhibition has chosen to keep, break or quietly reinterpret. What unites the seven is not a shared subject but a shared instinct: to use an old, exacting language to ask something urgent about the present," she said.

Faculty member at COMSATS University Samreen Asghar is the most senior practitioner in the exhibition, with over two decades of practice. She draws from Kangra, Pahari, Persian, Chinese and Japanese traditions. Her work envisions nature not as a passive backdrop but as an active witness.

Safwan Bashir, the winner of the Second Prize at the National Biennial Arjumand Painting Award in 2023, draws attention to the destruction of nature by human beings in his work. In the artwork "Where Birds Once Flew", he presents a Mughal king amid modern high-rise scaffolding rendered as cages, wondering where all the gardens and greenery have gone, while a small tree and a single kite flying overhead mark what little of the natural world still finds room to breathe.

Ali Gilani's artworks have been exhibited internationally in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Manchester and Moscow. The works in this exhibition are from the series "Blind Faith", which renders the shared narrative of Abraham, held in common by Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, showing how faith inspires resilience, compassion, and ethical living. He works in archival ink and gold leaf.

Bakhtawar Naqvi's artwork centres on borders, patterns, and figures in mundane settings, drawing on the hashiya of traditional miniature—the border that protects the central subject while also limiting it.

Hifza Khan's practice explores women's emotional landscapes through a dialogue between the body, nature, and cultural memory.

Onaiz Taji is inspired by the "kalam", or line work, which defines the characteristics of the people in his artworks.

Ramsha Rubbani's current series of work reveals the bitter reality of change in nature—not only in human beings but in every single thing in the environment, whether it is a seasonal change or a change in human behaviour.