Continuous Dialogue by Tariq Gill at Khaas Gallery

They come across as childlike and playful drawings. But those smirking and scared faces and the mayhem in tangled lines are mature and intense personal compositions. “The Continuous Dialogue” opened at the Khaas Gallery Thursday evening with nearly two dozen new impressions painted by Lahore-based artist and instructor at National College of Arts (NCA), Tariq Gill.

His paintings are a mixture of abstract and figuration, playful and childlike as well as stylised. The technique, according to some artists who visited his exhibition was not easy to accomplish.

An artist herself, Hurmatul Ain, respected his technique the most – the level of simplicity achieved, the comfort with the tools that is not easy to come and the natural ease with which ideas flow. “The same applies to his colours too,” she said.

According to the artist the childish-looking images were recalled memories. And that explained the abstract and distorted drawing-like paintings and the freedom that was so characteristic in Tariq Gill’s works.

While most of Gill’s paintings are untitled, “Frightened” reflected on different environments, and works like “Chaotic Journey” and “Sacrifice” were an impression of people’s lives – calm but mostly having despair and disorder – running around in confusion. None of his disfigured portraits are silent. “Something is Happening Inside” depicts sexual orientation, the artist explained.While Waheed Ahmad appreciated the soft, harmonised and subtle colours, his friend Naqsh Raj could relate herself to the impressions.

“They are so mature and intense,” she said studying the personal compositions.An art critic, Asim Akhtar described Tariq as “an artist who believed that art had no rules”. Tariq Gill used Casein on wasli and canvas. His water-based paints are easy flowing but lot more long lasting than water colours and are usually used for painting murals. The exhibition will run till March 5.