Mad meditations: Preconceived Dreams captivates audience at Taseer Art Gallery

Exhibition featuring work of three <br /> artists to continue until August 29.

LAHORE: An art exhibition titled Preconceived Dreams started at the Taseer Art Gallery in Lahore on Monday.

The show was attended by a large number of art enthusiasts; collectors and students. Ten paintings by three artists - Sabah Zahid, Sidra Asim and Zoya Manan - are on display.

Speaking to The Express Tribune, Zaineb Siddiqui, the curator at Taseer Art Gallery, said, “Painting is a sensitive medium and requires meditation. This can clearly be seen in the three painters’ work. Each painter caries a definitive mood and invites the viewer to engage with its subtle tonalities in perspective, colour and depth.”

Artist Sabah Zahid told The Express Tribune that she drew inspiration from classical English story books that used exaggeration and drama.



“In every painting, the story stretches outside the canvas, creating a mystery, the exaggerated expressions and the uncomfortable body posture forces one to question the reasons behind such a situation,” said Zahid. She said all her paintings included images of women depicting their dominance and power in every situation.

Zahid’s three pictures are titled: Silence in Solitude, Path to Conspiracy and A Dream within a Dream.

Artist Sidra Asim said, “My work is my meditation. I struggle with my emotions and the only outlet is my work. I use the people and objects I see through my work.”

“I mix madness and strangeness into everyday reality to produce my work,” she said.

She said that her paintings had different layers, including drawings and mix media. “I would like to develop more possibilities of layering and transparency, using layers over sepia drawings. Objects can bear memories of people and places and I use them in my work,” she said.

“The brightly painted objects in the foreground will be sharply juxtaposed by those sepia backgrounds and drawings, fading into brown. This will have a phantom-like effect,” she said.

Her three pieces are titled: Identical, Low of Surroundings and Inseparable. They were made using pen on paper, oil on fabric and pen and oil on fabric techniques.

Artist Zoya Manan told The Express Tribune that she had dealt with claustrophobia, two dimensionality and disbalance in her work.

“The psychological state of mind and the absence of presence are also visible in my work,” she said. Her four paintings are titled: Rigidity, Motionless, Claustrophobic and Compression.

The exhibition will continue until August 29.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 26^th, 2014.