The recent launch of Moeen Faruqi’s “Blue Room and Other Stories” at the Khaas Gallery, Islamabad, shows him doing what he does well, illustrating the urban malaise. Together yet alone, the intense estrangement between his subjects, (otherwise in close proximity to each other) is the most defining feature of his oeuvre. Grim, withdrawn, tense or fraught by his protagonists, islands unto themselves invite speculation on their demeanour and the forces that trigger such insularity.

Many thinkers / philosophers have theorised on the stress of living in a concrete jungle. Erected in opposition to nature, the modern metropolis is a realistic reminder of the growing distance between nature and culture. German sociologist / philosopher Georg Simmel’s essay, The Metropolis and Mental Life, illustrates some aspects of modern urban culture.

In spite of having been written at a time in which cities were very different from contemporary megalopolises, with the biggest cities approaching one million inhabitants, Simmel’s treatise remains to a great extent relevant to this day. For the writer, the big city is dominated by objectivism (as opposed to subjectivism, with the individual at the centre). Human interactions in the metropolis become short and instrumental, lacking the emotional and personal involvement of small communities.

In this exhibition, Moeen Faruqi captures the urban feeling of estrangement and alienation

Due to the intensification of external and internal stimuli in the city as compared to a rural setting, the metropolis fosters a situation where one must buffer oneself from a constantly changing environment. This protection manifests itself in the rise of logic and intellect with little consideration to emotional concerns. People are enslaved to time, working under the clock. Everything in the city is measurable, qualitative value is reduced to quantitative and this yields what Simmel terms as “blasé” — superficiality, greyness, indifference and alienation.

Viewed in this context, Faruqi’s enigmatic characterisations of social alienation gain a larger perspective. Like most literature centred on psychological isolation of an individual from society, his paintings too are imaginary chronicles but inspired by existing reality. To many viewers his tableaux of proximity and distance — stark juxtapositions of the city and the individual — bizarre attractions and loveless relationships compel inquiry and provoke interpretations because as urbanites, they catch glimpses of their lives in them.

Garish, fauvist colour applications and crude brushwork is another impact generating component of his art. This in itself is ironical — using screaming primary colours like red, blue, yellow and green to express the angst and emptiness that the urban man experiences — but the formula works. It seems as if the treatment is intuitive.

In the current show there is a slight departure from the norm as he slides into a blue mood. Some compositions painted in grey / blue hues hint of Noir thrillers but the blue haze is too depressing — it lacks the chromatic intensity of his bold, bright palette of jarring contrasts. Colours are a very strong constituent of Faruqi’s oeuvre and he has a very individual method of combining them. This ability of balancing contradictory colours gives his paintings their characteristic voltage and the “Blue Room” series lack that charge.

Problem pictures or story paintings, Faruqi’s narrative is similar to fiction writing. Viewing the work is like reading it. Other than pondering over disillusionment, bleakness and despair, how to be at peace with ourselves, how to live with others, and how to make the most of what life has to offer are among the several questions his paintings prompt.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, December 21st, 2014