May 23, 2007	Wednesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 06, 1428

ISLAMABAD, May 22: Displaying imaginative resourcefulness, two young graduates from National College of Arts (NCA) and Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, Karachi, held a joint exhibition exploiting colours and forms here on Tuesday.

Shireen Ikramullah Khan, an NCA graduate, and Nazia Akram from Karachi had brought their thesis projects to the Khaas Art Gallery.

Shireen’s paintings, which she says are the ecological awakening of her subconsciousness, are imbued with the artist’s admiration for and even her feeling of awe towards nature.

“There is a certain evolution of an ecological awareness, and I have used different elements from nature to portray this,” Shireen said on the preview of the exhibition.

“The entire structure is a mixture of my thoughts and emotions, and through a lot of layering and use of colour I can portray what is actually going on inside my own subconscious,” she said while explaining the concept behind her project.

She works in mixed media - water colour, charcoal inks and enamel - and even gets out of paints and uses sand and wax as she also experiments other materials to give a different touch to her works.

Her works in dark colours like reds, purples and blues are very emotional outcomes as she admires nature.

She emphasises on texture applying the layer upon layer process, splashes and detail embedded into the works.

Nazia Akram explores the status of women and the ensuing notions of femininity.

“I compare women to the delicacy of flowers and treat them as high maintenance objects that reeks of a certain stripping of individuality,” Nazia said while explaining her works.

She critically portrays life of women from childhood where as a little girl she loves to play in gardens with dandelions growing all around to adulthood when the world sees her as nothing but a delicate and beautiful item.

Her works like “listen to me” and “overshadowed” present women as something more than just creatures of beauty and to be admired and cared for as individuals with the ability to make a difference.

“Women are more than just Barbie dolls. And a woman of substance cannot accept this. In my paintings, she rebels and cries out for liberation as she wants to be accepted and admired in her eternity,” she said.

Nazia, who also enjoys photography, had also displayed her coloured as well as black-and-white impressions of flowers.

A couple of the coloured photographs were like the viewer is looking into a kaleidoscope.