If war is the historic province of men, then rebuilding after the devastation of conflict is something that falls to women. Theirs is an untold story of untiring efforts to restore the normalcy that war and bloodshed has upended.

Unfortunately, most of the historians, authors, poets, artists and reformers were male. Therefore, it is the male narrative that dominates in religious discourse, literature, myths, culture and even the visual arts where the female character has been portrayed from the eye of a man rather than a realistic or impartial observer.

The female body and its representation has always been an obsession for the artists; occasionally for sacred dogmas of deities and goddesses and at times, just to explore various folds of sensuality.

The show that depicts the many faces and roles of women

The two-person exhibition “Dedicated to you” by Sumera Jawad and Zarmeena Aslam at Ejaz Art Galleries, Lahore displayed the aura of female imagery through a series of animated frames. Figures, drenched and wrapped in curves and shapes, painted on the coarse surface of the canvas, created an atmosphere acknowledging the centuries old, divine and delightful doctrine that has always been associated with women.

Pick one, Sumera Jawad

Jawad, during her research for the doctoral degree, became interested in the woman’s image which is cultivated and personified in various cultures, religions and mythologies and expressed through literature and arts, from ancient to modern civilisations. She explored the “everlasting image of a woman” through enchanting colours and flowing lines with a particular comparison of that image.

The numerous solo shows she held, during this course, highlighted the female image in reference to almost all the notable ancient cultures ranging from the Greek to Mayan, from the Roman to the Celtic and from the Egyptian to the South Asian.

Now Jawad has concentrated on the female personification in relation with the symbols of fragility and femininity. The rose is one such emblem that, for its colours, delicacy and multiplicity of layers, has been associated with the woman, physically as well as spiritually.

Being hitting, Zarmeena Aslam

In this show, the artist excavated the subtle and luxuriant relationship between a female and the rose. As she states, “The rose and the female share fragile folds and fantasies which, complemented each other with similes and metaphors of purity, virginity, seduction, secrets, sexuality, fertility and regeneration. Both have given voices to the unfathomable imagination of poets and helped history of mankind to be aromatic, sumptuous and romantic.”

It is also a fact that in her earlier exhibitions, she painted woman as a singular and powerful entity where she attains the level of a goddess rather than a common human being. However, in recent years, the artist has given space to the opposite gender as well within her frames along with the iconic beauty of a female, compensating the fertility and complementing the physical completion, to add the worldly and concrete meanings of life to humanity. In this imagined itinerary, Jawad has shown a silhouetted male figure behind a self-possessed or shattered woman, composed with a full intact rose or scattered rose-petals falling around, challenging the viewers’ imagination and assumptions. The artist strongly believes in revealing very little on the canvas and letting the story be completed by the onlooker while standing against the paintings.

On the other hand, Aslam presented the other side of the commercial beauty where the woman has to be part of the market, to promote the sales of any product. She, as a socially cognizant artist, has commented on the rotten and stinky side of ‘behind the curtain’ life of theatre performers. In the Western world of art, Henry de Toulouse Lautrec, after joining a circus group, started to portray the already painted faces of clowns, singers, performers and jugglers. He captured the original life and the problems of those who entertain the public at the stage.

Untitled, Sumera Jawad

In Pakistan, Iqbal Hussain, with his female characters of the red light area, is an eminent artist who generates awareness through art. Aslam’s work seems inspired by that legacy of painting the non-glamorous aspect of the limelight life, especially associated with women.

The artist, as a sensitive painter, has focused on the emotional life of these commercial artists who for the sake of ‘selling dreams’, compromise on their self-respect and tolerate vulgar glances and abusive language in the most intimidating, risky and male-dominated surroundings; where the woman is considered an object rather than a human being.

In both these cases, whether the women have been presented as a strong mythological character or a realistic, deprived and oppressed creature, the true image is missing somewhere. If Jawad has fetched her, as a robust, compassionate and powerful character, out of history and symbolically presented her to be labelled as a deity, Aslam has personified her as a child of a lesser god. Both these attitudes define a certain fixated and sympathetic idealism which has been negated in the modern world which empowers the woman as an equal partner.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, June 28th, 2015

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