December 02, 2008	Tuesday	Zilhaj 3, 1429

KARACHI: Fizza Saleem’s exhibition at Indus Gallery of visually narrated short stories, as she prefers to call them, is abstract, not in its drawings but in its thought content. This is not to take away the beauty of her works, particularly pen and ink drawings, with some colour thrown in. These works are delicate. The ones that are most appealing seem to be like scenes from a Mediterranean town.

Grabbed by an art lover within minutes of the opening of the show was a pen and ink composition which showed a couple of wrought-iron chairs and a wrought-iron table with a glass top placed on a pavement, with no human in sight. The work was cleverly placed at the eye-level by the late Ali Imam’s wife who runs the gallery after the death of her illustrious husband.

In the same genre is a bath tub under a shower, and guess what, there are flowers growing in the tub. Then there are cityscapes, all refreshingly different from each other, though the style remains unmistakably the same.

What makes this series so appealing is the artist’s minimalistic technique. She doesn’t fill up even half her compositions. In fact, the profusion of white – the colour of the paper – plays an important role in making the works delectable.

In another section of the gallery are drawings with repetitive use of her pen on rice paper. The artist describing the works in this genre to an art enthusiast said that unlike her pen and ink drawings which tell of a single thought, these convey more than one story, all running parallel to each other. Be that as it may, this reviewer would opt for the work where white is as much articulate as the black lines and the colours that are added very sparingly.

Fizza Saleem teaches art to A-levels students in a school and her work may well be that of a role model for her students, who want to specialise in drawing. She is three-fourth a product of the National College of Arts, Lahore and one-fourth of the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, where she spent one year before she graduated.

The exhibition will close during the Eid holidays and will reopen, only to conclude on December 13.—AN