Whimsical appearances: Inspiration from water, clouds painted into images
Exhibition of 20 art pieces by Anushka Musa, Sajid Khan starts.
LAHORE:
An art show, Abstractions and Extractions, featuring 20 art pieces by Anushka Musa and Sajid Khan started at Taseer Art Gallery on Monday.
A large number of art enthusiasts and students visited the exhibition that will continue until September 5.
Musa and Khan have built narratives using a single colour. Musa’s depiction of water is almost a scientific study of its properties. Khan’s work caters to clouds creating a sense of foredoom and anxiety.
Musa’s 11 art pieces are titled: Affinity, Bifurcate, Contained Disorder, Dark Matter, Deliberate Regression, Divine Dust, Emancipation, Mutable, Prelude, Remnants and The Expansion. They are made using pen on paper.
“I began exploring a new visual vocabulary inspired by an ancient Persian pattern used for depicting water. My fascination with the pattern stems from its constant fluid and evolving nature. It was first used on ancient Persian pots and artefacts and later in Persian miniatures,” Musa told The Express Tribune.
“It embodies changeability; both qualities I deem necessary to survive in any given situation. I began to associate the pattern with my surroundings and found it an apt way to describe the mutable nature of the current affairs in Pakistani society,” she said.
“My work has also been inspired by cartography and landforms. The flowing nature of rocks and ridges; all the natural elements that I believe have stood the test of time by constant metamorphism. ”
She said rough and rigid elements sometimes had delicate edges or a whimsical appearance.
“It is this duality or paradox nature which fascinates me. The shapes that I seek to portray in my work are reminiscent of natural forms and structures.
Mighty rocks, whimsical clouds, evolving waves, twisting rivers are a few of my inspirations as well as maps and natural structures,” Musa said.
Khan said his work was based on his observation and experience of life in his village.
“In my village, I was not aware of materials like acrylic or oil paints. I only knew about pencils that seem a docile and a compliant medium. Even after I learned to use other mediums, working with pencil remained natural to me. I find it a nostalgic working with a lead pencil. Like my materials, my ideas originate from my early life in my village Palai near Swat,” Khan said.
He said he had always found clouds fascinating. “To me they are creatures like us but they are not constrained by material boundaries. They gave me this feeling of objects that are out of this world, which you cannot completely comprehend in terms of shape, volume, space and size.”
His nine pieces are made using colour pencil, photo print on wasli, graphite on wasli, opaque water colour and graphite on wasli.
Sanam Taseer of Taseer Art Gallery said work of both the artists juxtaposed airiness and structure. “They have a strong mastery of their medium,” she said.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 2nd, 2014.
An art show, Abstractions and Extractions, featuring 20 art pieces by Anushka Musa and Sajid Khan started at Taseer Art Gallery on Monday.
A large number of art enthusiasts and students visited the exhibition that will continue until September 5.
Musa and Khan have built narratives using a single colour. Musa’s depiction of water is almost a scientific study of its properties. Khan’s work caters to clouds creating a sense of foredoom and anxiety.
Musa’s 11 art pieces are titled: Affinity, Bifurcate, Contained Disorder, Dark Matter, Deliberate Regression, Divine Dust, Emancipation, Mutable, Prelude, Remnants and The Expansion. They are made using pen on paper.
“I began exploring a new visual vocabulary inspired by an ancient Persian pattern used for depicting water. My fascination with the pattern stems from its constant fluid and evolving nature. It was first used on ancient Persian pots and artefacts and later in Persian miniatures,” Musa told The Express Tribune.
“It embodies changeability; both qualities I deem necessary to survive in any given situation. I began to associate the pattern with my surroundings and found it an apt way to describe the mutable nature of the current affairs in Pakistani society,” she said.
“My work has also been inspired by cartography and landforms. The flowing nature of rocks and ridges; all the natural elements that I believe have stood the test of time by constant metamorphism. ”
She said rough and rigid elements sometimes had delicate edges or a whimsical appearance.
“It is this duality or paradox nature which fascinates me. The shapes that I seek to portray in my work are reminiscent of natural forms and structures.
Mighty rocks, whimsical clouds, evolving waves, twisting rivers are a few of my inspirations as well as maps and natural structures,” Musa said.
Khan said his work was based on his observation and experience of life in his village.
“In my village, I was not aware of materials like acrylic or oil paints. I only knew about pencils that seem a docile and a compliant medium. Even after I learned to use other mediums, working with pencil remained natural to me. I find it a nostalgic working with a lead pencil. Like my materials, my ideas originate from my early life in my village Palai near Swat,” Khan said.
He said he had always found clouds fascinating. “To me they are creatures like us but they are not constrained by material boundaries. They gave me this feeling of objects that are out of this world, which you cannot completely comprehend in terms of shape, volume, space and size.”
His nine pieces are made using colour pencil, photo print on wasli, graphite on wasli, opaque water colour and graphite on wasli.
Sanam Taseer of Taseer Art Gallery said work of both the artists juxtaposed airiness and structure. “They have a strong mastery of their medium,” she said.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 2nd, 2014.