Degree show: Art for all seasons

The show features the thesis work of MA Visual Arts students.

LAHORE:

A degree show featuring the work of the National College of Arts’s (NCA) 14th MA (Honours) Visual Arts Programme’s 15 students began on Wednesday at the Zahoorul Akhlaque Gallery. 

A large number of art enthusiasts were present on the occasion. Fine Arts Department Head Quddus Mirza said the displayed works were a testament to the constantly evolving nature of art. He said all the featured artists possessed the Midas touch that could make viewers realise the truths of life, reality and their surroundings. Mirza said they had a shaman-like ability to prolong their trance till their works had transcended or transformed a banal existence into a higher entity.



Zohreen Murtaza, one of the artists, said she had decided to pursue a master’s degree at the college as she had stopped making art after graduating. She said the opportunity to train under the best and the brightest in the field had made her come back. Murtaza said her work explored a certain ‘feeling.’ She said it was related to melancholy and loss. This, she said, was the gist of her work. Murtaza said elements and objects that constituted her work symbolised feelings including anxiety, experience and the transience of time.

Sehr Jalil, another artist, said she had decided to pursue further education as she pined for an environment similar to the one at the NCA. She said her work was an eclectic combination of various things as she had been profoundly influenced by artist Robert Rauschenberg. Jalil said her four works being showcased at the show were connected to each other as they demonstrated a common concern regarding reaching the abstract realm of utopia. She said she wanted to push her limits and was considering whether to pursue a PhD.

Ahmad Sajjad, one of the graduating students, said he had a penchant for exploring different mediums and experimenting. He said this had made the college a perfect fit for him. Sajjad said his work was inspired by changing times. He said he wanted to capture epoch-making events that caused everything to change. “It is the decay, degeneration, disfiguration and regression or the growth, regeneration, figuration and progression that I am trying to show through heaps of smoke moving densely, making forms and shapes that are beyond human control,” Sajjad said.

Naussebah Osman and Rabbiya Abdullah from Karachi graduated in textile design from the Textile Institute of Pakistan in 2010 and 2011 respectively. They said they had found textile design very limited in scope as they had to follow a set pattern. The artists said they had ended up creating textile art and decided to take it further. They said they found the programme at the NCA to be very laissez faire in nature as one had the opportunity to use any medium and create what ever they deemed fit. The artists said their work explored chauvinism, gender disequilibrium, stereotypes and sexual harassment in culture and society. They said they had depicted these issues humorously, ironically and honestly.

Amjad Ali Talpur, an artist from Hyderabad, said his work was inspired by society and what transpired on a daily basis. He said he played with ordinary objects to depict the crises plaguing the nation.

Talpur’s work has been exhibited internationally and he established his own department at a university in Hyderabad and taught miniature painting.

He said he had joined the NCA after getting tired of teaching and feeling the need to update himself. Talpur said his work was related to the construction of identity. “Some people believe we are terrorists while others say we are pacifists. We speak different languages and they impact us and the society we dwell in. I work around it,” he said.

The show will conclude on Monday.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 11^th, 2014.