Photographs – Paintings by Afghan Artist Hamid Muqtader
Photo by Dawn
H.E Janan Mosazai
The Embessidor of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in Islamabad
along with The Rohtas Gallery
Photographs – Paintings Exhibition
by
Hamid Muqtader
on Friday 27 June 2014 at 6:00 pm
the Exhibition will continue till 28 June 2014
all Sales will be Donated to victims of
Recent Natural Disaster in Afghanistan
Rohtas Gallery
House 57-B, Street 26, F-6/2,
Islamabad-Pakistan
The Rohtas Gallery on Friday opened a two-day exhibition of photographs and paintings by an Afghan artist to raise funds for the affected people of the natural disaster that devastated a village in the Badakhshan province in May this year.
The landslide transformed the village into a mass grave burying it under some 40 metres of mud and rock and killing some 2,000 people.
Organised in collaboration with the embassy of Afghanistan, all the proceeds from the sale of the paintings and photographs would go to the survivors.
Hamid Muqtader, the Afghan poet and painter, told the guests on the opening day of the exhibition that this was his contribution for those in difficult times and in need in his country to help deal with their losses.
A journalist for an Afghan news channel in Islamabad, Hamid Muqtader spent three months in finishing his works, including the photographs.
He has been painting since four years and has exhibited his works in Turkey, Iran and his home country.
Hung in the renovated galleries under natural and artificial lighting, the works are not of the calibre of a professional artist. All the works appeared child-like paintings.
The same could safely be said about the photographs of children, landscape images and animals that were somewhat out of focus, lacking in sharpness and had some errors in white balance settings.
The paintings finished in water colours and oil paints are somewhat bizarre imagery of distorted figures and lots of eyes in all the images such as hats, arms, sticks and even one-eyed figures. Mugtader explained how he was in search of an identity and ideology.
He said he was responding to the circumstances of the present times and the instability in his home country.
“The images are a reflection of my thoughts about the present situations,” he said, explaining the thought process that went into his paintings.
There was a mixed reaction from the audience, some appreciating while others moving on from one work to another wasting little time on the artworks.
(Dawn)
