Images that speak: Scenes from daily life look special on paper

Exhibition showcasing Caryn Frank, Irfan Zahid art pieces begins.

LAHORE: A group art exhibition, To Whom It May Concern, featuring works of Caryn Frank and Irfan Zahid opened at Taseer Art Gallery on Monday.

A large number of art lovers and students visited the exhibition that will continue until October 23.

Fifteen pieces made using polythene on boxboard and collage on paper are on display.

“My thoughts mean the world to me,” Frank told The Express Tribune.

“Bringing out my thoughts onto the surface gives me utter satisfaction and fills me with a sense of integrity and accomplishment. I like an element of intimacy between me and my work. I try to keep things simple.”

Frank said she did not make a physical representation of her thoughts until she had not fully felt them.

“I pour it out only when an experience is complete. The decision of choosing a material depends on the availability, finances and my mood. I go through the entire process in my head and if it seems good there, the product is a physical manifestation of it.”

Frank said her earlier work was more like a personal diary. “But now I intend to imitate newspapers…. as everyone make their own assumptions and assessments.”

The artist’s work depicts scenes from daily life that one tends to overlook.

Zahid said he collected paper with printed brandings from different places to keep memories locked. “It can be tags, bills, posters, leaflets or pictures. I mix them together with my drawings.”

Zahid said that while making images, he tended to play with principles of visual representation to make the image more interesting and communicative.

“Breaking the conventional ways of creating images to portray concepts, memories and thoughts, I tend to make images cut in layers.”

For the artist, everything happening around him happens in layers.

“We jump from layer to layer. One working on Photoshop layers or setting a timeline while editing a project on a software can relate to this,” Zahid said.

He said that although his work was full of visual information, some people might find it monotonous.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 21^st, 2014.