Exhibition: Inner journeys put on canvas

Four contemporary artists try to make sense of life’s complexities as well as its order.

ISLAMABAD:

A group exhibition showcasing the works of four contemporary artists opened at the My Art World gallery on Monday. Titled “As time goes by”, the exhibition features artists Zahra Ehsan, Nayha Jehangir, Mina Arham and Minahil Hafeez.

Although unique in their outlook, each artist has portrayed a journey within and etched their memories and experiences onto canvas, which forms the unifying essence of the exhibition.

“The young artists have expressed their innermost feelings by translating them onto canvas. Time and again, we realise that art has therapeutic powers as an outlet for emotional release. Each image works to communicate that sense,” said Zara Sajid, the gallery curator.

Hafeez employs pencil, ink and graphite in her contemporary miniatures. The intricate lines resemble a fine mesh of black and white, mapped in neat patterns. When the lines are too close together, they break away in another direction.

“My work is about how we live in a chaotic world, dealing with its complexity as well as its order. The patterns represent how each individual tries to cope up and in the process, patterns are created,” she said.

Hafeez graduated as a miniature artist from the National College of the Arts in Lahore this year. She has previously exhibited her artwork at the VM Gallery in Karachi and Nairang and Taseer galleries in Lahore.

She was recently shortlisted for the International Emerging Artist Award by the Sabrina Amrani art gallery and exhibited at the Golden 15 International Emerging Artist Award showcase in Dubai.

Jehangir’s layered portraits are digitally manipulated, sketched and sometimes painted over in fragmented, transient and solid colour. From underlying contours of faces and a plethora of expression, the details blur out to create multidimensional perspectives which exude an impressionistic aura.

Trained at York University, Canada, Jehangir has previously exhibited her work in Istanbul and Islamabad. The project started out as a street art media-based display and engaged an audience into its narrative through visual discourse.

Meanwhile, Ehsan’s paintings stand out for their bold, decorative feel. “My work is underpinned by a sense of longing for what is, perhaps, the impossible. Through a child-like defence mechanism, I force surface beauty, pattern and flowers into the visuals in an attempt to hold my constructed reality together,” she said. Arbitrary paint splats amidst scenery make for an ambivalent expression.

Finally, Arham’s sketches exude a lucid, homely feel and depict urban cityscapes. Each of her images tells a story and questions the identity of a city and the individuals’ role in it. “You see the images and you may just think these are houses from afar, or it is the city you live in, but if you look deeper, it is actually something that has just been put together to create an experience of a city or landscape that we all might relate to on some level, no matter where we’re from, making this idea somewhat universal,” she said.

The exhibition runs through June 27 and the pieces on display can also be seen at the gallery’s website www.myartworld.org. (http://www.myartworld.org.)

Published in The Express Tribune, June 17^th, 2014.