Australian, Pakistani artists produce collaborative art

After Hybrid I’s success, the artists decided to take it to the next level and produced Hybrid II

KARACHI: The works of Lahore-based Atif Khan and Australian artist Damon Kowarsky are the best example of a ‘hybrid’, which means an offspring of two plants or animals of different breeds or varieties.

The exhibition of the artists’ works, titled ‘Hybrid II’, opened at the Gandhara Art Space on February 2. It is the second part of the collaboration series between the Australian Commission, Islamabad, and the National College of Arts (NCA), Lahore.

According to Khan, ‘Hybrid I’, which happened in 2012, was a big hit and greatly appreciated by the art lovers. “After its success, we decided to move forward and work collaboratively with our cultures.”

Explaining the idea behind the collective project, Khan said that they wanted to incorporate the works of one artist into the other’s and also two different cultures and mind-sets into one another. More than 20 collaborative works and eight separate works are on display till March 29.

Khan and Kowarsky embarked upon their collaborative journey in January 2014 when they started sharing their ideas with each other.

“I sent this balloon to Kowarsky and never told him what I was thinking while drawing this,” said Khan, pointing towards one of the works on display. “Kowarsky added the high-rise building in this piece and the idea behind this literally changed.”

Khan explained the methods employed in the collaborative process in detail. He said the idea behind each work is the same: sketching or drawing any random thing, then scanning the picture and sending it to the other artist to allow him to use his creativity to complete the piece.

Talking about one of the collaborative works, titled ‘Conversation’, he said that Kowarsky sent him the image of a sketched building of the New York City. “I tried to put two ages in one by adding Queen Elizabeth and [Mughal] Queen Noor Jahan in conversation with each other.”

Khan’s memories of his student life in NCA are depicted in one of the works, titled ‘Window’. “This window is of the NCA building which is very close to my heart as I learnt art from there,” he said. “The beauty of this collaboration is the high-rise buildings of Melbourne, which can be seen from the windows of NCA in Lahore.”

He explained the idea behind one of the best works on display, titled ‘Rooh Khech’, which showed an old camera. “Behind this camera are the streets and life of Hong Kong which Kowarsky has sketched when he went there on holidays,” he told The Express Tribune.

Inspired by Sufism, Khan depicted his love for mystical dimensions in Islam in almost all of his works. “I usually use something from the Mughal Era when I have to finalise any of the collaborative pieces,” he added. He used images of the Mughal kings dressed in their long robes, which remind the viewer of the kings’ Sufi inclinations.

Interestingly, the concepts behind the individual works turned out to be quite unique. “We both had to work on the same subject but individually,” said Khan. “This made our works turn out to be very different from each other,” he said while comparing how the oval is used differently by both of them.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 21^st, 2015.