Images of women bring rural Sindh to Lahore

LAHORE: An art exhibition titled Dusty Winds, will be displayed at the Ejaz Galleries on Monday (today) and run till October 18.

The exhibition will consist of recent work by Syed Ali Abbas Jafri, the Fine Arts department head at the Centre of Excellence in Art and Design (CEAD) Muet, Jamshoro.

Inspired by women from rural Sindh, the artist has focused on the lives of ordinary women from the nomadic tribes. He has depicted their migration according to the seasons and circumstances. Speaking to The Express Tribune about the subject Dusty Winds, he said this about the nomadic women of rural Sindh.

“Their existence is a day-to-day affair. They have to keep moving, depending on weather conditions, finding new shelters and searching for food and water.” Talking about a woman’s role in the rural society, he said that a woman played a pivotal role in the tribal way of life. She was responsible for household chores, fetching water from distant wells and rearing children. This, essentially, was their total existence. “In Dusty Winds, I have tried to imitate their environment and to communicate the same through my paintings,” he added.

Commenting on Jafri’s work, critic Marjorie Husain said, “Ali Abbas is a skilled draughtsman. In his paintings, one finds glimpses of unexpected beauty in delicately rendered figures portrayed in traditional costumes.”

Painter Abdul Rahim Nagori said, “Abbas has developed his individual style in depicting people of the rural Sindh, in their ragged but colorful costumes.

Abbas makes use of a bright environment to depict the sunny Sindh to its best visual effect.” He is a promising artist with a bright future ahead of him, he added.

Jafri’s work has been exhibited in several major cities of Pakistan and abroad in a series of impressions of his homeland.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 11^th, 2010.