Juxtapose

Paintings Exhibition

by

Ahsan Mohiuddin
Falak Noor
Huma Ali Shan
Sana Anwar
Tabassum Naz

on Friday 29 August 2014 at 5:00 pm
the Exhibition will continue till 19 September 2014
Daily 11:00 am to 8:00 pm

Full Circle Gallery

D-53/1, Block 4, Clifton
Karachi-Pakistan.

A group of five artists has presented a series of artworks that aptly reflect their title: ‘Juxtapose’. Be it the difference between life and death or negativity and positivity, the works are a depiction of contrasts.

The pieces are on display at the Full Circle Gallery at its recent exhibition titled ‘Juxtapose’. The show opened on Friday and will continue till September 19.

‘Azaan till Namaz’ is a painting showing a baby and a bier, which reflects on the transition of a human from life to death. With life and death as its thematic focus, the artwork by Huma Ali Shah is ripe with emotion. It depicts a baby inside a large ear which emanated thin threads leading to a desolate bier , giving the painting its apt title.

“Life is too short and we don’t realise,” says Shah. “We are born and azaan is recited in our ears. We don’t realise how little time there is between this azaan and our funeral prayers.”

She uses fish in ’1 minute, 30 seconds’ to depict the ephemeral nature of life. The oil-on-canvas painting brims with movement and activity, portraying what appears to symbolise a volcanic eruption. It shakes the viewer back to reality: our lives are nothing more than that of a fish.

Tabassum Naz illustrates related concepts using gouache on canvas. Setting her focus on negativity and positivity, she plays with the colours red and blue. She makes a comparison using two paintings. In ‘Dard Baham’, she depicts chained men looking towards a red sun. They are chained, yet appear hopeful. In contrast, ‘Pichli Gali Ka Suraj’ shows a despaired man with his back towards a blue sun and his head looking down.

“The two are a comparison of positive and negative people,” explains Naz. The men in both the paintings give an image of social reformers and intellectuals, such as artists and writers. They know what’s wrong with the society but are often ahead of their time and hence chained. The ones looking up to the red sun are the ones who don’t give up, while the one with the blue sun has become dismayed.

Sculptor Ahsan Mohiuddin creatively plays with symbolism in his sculptures. Using fibre glass as his medium, he assembles a sculpture showing stairs leading to a passage. “The white and black stairs denote good and bad means, respectively, while the silver balls are the humans vulnerable to roll onto any side,” he says. “Both the white and black stairs lead to the same passage. It is the person’s choice which ones he/she chooses.”

The idea of good and evil echo in Sana Anwer’s works as well, who uses animals as symbols. In an untitled painting, overlapping images of a swan, a crocodile, a fish, a horse and a human hand, showed activity and charged emotion. “The overlapping shows the constant struggle going on inside us,” she says. “At times, our spirituality is high. At others, it weakens and our ‘nafs’ takes over.”

The love of God

Spirituality seems to have inspired Falak Noor. Using painting ink on acrylics, repeated patterns of the fingerprints were painted into different forms. ‘Kashish-e-Juz’ depicts the dependence of one object or creature on another.

“Just like the earth is held in its place thanks to gravity, humans are dependent on God,” she says. The cord-like link between the two circular forms evokes the image of an umbilical cord and the relationship and dependence of a mother and child.

Curator Scherezade Junejo is happy that Noor used such a creative medium. She was also impressed by other works, in particular, that of Huma Ali Shah. “Being an oil painter myself, her works have greatly affected me,” she tells The Express Tribune over a telephone interview. “The aesthetic, soft quality of colour and the organic texture in ’1 minute, 30 seconds’ makes it my favourite.”

(tribune.com.p)