Scenes from the cultural capital take centre stage

Exhibit boasts a number of bright, captivating pieces portraying life in Lahore.

ISLAMABAD: With Ramazan over, life has returned to the city’s art galleries, with the exhibitions kick started by a showcase of the works of Lahore-based Kulsoom Aftab, M Ilyas, Hamid Alvi and Sarafaz Musawir.

The vibrant display at Nomad Gallery varies from printmaking, engraving on slate and oil on canvas, as each artists chooses to work with his or own personal forte. M Ilyas showcases four grey slate tiles with intricate calligraphy engraving. Slate engraving is something of a family tradition for him as he learnt the art from his grandfather. The slates used are extracted from the Gangar Mountains, because of which the particular slate manages to last through varying temperatures.

Kulsoom Aftab works with Lahore’s inner city’s male and female artists to reproduce mosaic prints of the originals that are located in the heart of Lahore. Her own work showcases three-minute miniatures like mosaic pieces, while the rest that are made by local artisans are bigger with dominant tones of blue, green and orange on the prints which are patterned to resemble Mughal era mosaic tiles.

Hamid Alvi’s work interestingly contrasts with Aftab’s. He uses oil on canvas as his medium, with thick brushstrokes that add a lot of feel and texture to his paintings, depicting hazy looking urban areas of the country. Rich orange and rust colours simulate dusk or dawn, and while the paintings have little or no human figures in them One particularly powerful painting of his of sea waves crashing against the shore with black birds flapping their wings above desperately trying to fly against the current, giving a particularly hauntingly eerie affect with deep dark blue and black colours.

Last but not least is Sarafaraz Musawir’s work which also uses oil-on-canvas as a medium to portray bustling markets with the telltale web of power poles above and a crowd full of venders and shoppers below. His work also seems to have a particularly hazy effect, but the presence of human figures — albeit expressionless — gives the impression of more movement in the pieces.

The exhibition will continue till August 30.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 25^th, 2012.