March 25, 2008	Tuesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 16, 1429

ISLAMABAD, March 24: Rare are the events that could showcase quality works, and that too by budding artists, by humorously blending popular street art with the ones steeped in the somewhat impenetrable philosophy of human existence, personal space, cultural identity, hybridism and displacements of all sorts.

In what appeared to be an above run of the mill preview, Rohtas Art Gallery here on Monday brought a rare feast to the capital by raising the curtain from the work of five promising fresh graduates of the Karachi-based Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture for journalists.

While, the art buffs will judge the calibre of these fresh minds — Saneeya Ghadially, Mariam Ahmed, Sehar Naveed, Alia Bilgrami and Samar Zia — when the exhibition formally opens on Tuesday, a deep look at the works on display gives the impression as if these immature artists from Karachi are going to impress some of their veteran counterparts of the federal capital.

“This is a work of rare quality for artists of such young ages,” says Shireen Ikram, the curator of the gallery.

Alia Bilgrami’s water-colour miniatures highlight the psychological stress humans are faced with in a globalised world as they are being put into boxes they don’t belong in.

She has portrayed cardboard boxes — essentially utilised for packing and moving — to embody the displaced people who often face alienation and categorisation. The displacement is often not mere geographical, but spiritual, cultural and physical as well.

Through the untraditional medium of graphite and emulsion, Saneeya Ghadially has explored the theme of personal space and the relationships between humans and things.

“Its inability to be constant is how I perceive life,” Ms Ghadially observes as she tries to explain her work loaded with philosophies of Zoroastrian culture and its symbols.

While, flying on her artistic imaginations, she compares her washroom with a fish, that symbolises cleanliness in Parsee culture, for she has found her personal space in her washroom.

Mariam Ahmed’s work done in mixed media addresses several interconnected notions ranging from the fear and scare haunting the country’s commercial capital (Karachi) to the state of psychological retreat of its citizens who always helplessly anticipate a permanent disaster but are not willing to do anything. It also highlights the nature of urban myths and incidents brewed and exaggerated to become fantastic tales.

“The work is about the people and experience of the urban fiasco that Karachi is,” reflects Ms Mariam as she thinks her city as contemporary, chaotic, fantastically bizarre yet endearing.

Perturbed over the contrast in the present political scenario and the very ideology behind the creation of Pakistan, Samar Zia’s oil work on canvas discovers the fact that military in this country is what governs, first and foremost, on a sub- conscious level the identity of Pakistanis.

She explores the subject with surreal mindscapes inspired by popular Pakistani materials.

Inspired by the unconscious existence of art and imagery in her city, the work of Seher Naveed done in mixed media is focused on personal space.

The walls of the city create boundaries, constrain, and restrict all activity, creating space within space and yet are greatly used to voice society’s consciousness.

The walls that hold her surroundings are overwhelmingly encrusted with cheap, advertisement, religious propaganda and political graffiti. Her work is interwoven with public statements, texts, popular icons and her own response to the political state of mind in her environment.