During the mid-year summer break, galleries concentrate on general art displays which goes down well with the somewhat relaxed ambiance and holiday buying spirit of viewers at this time of the year. Associating a ‘relaxed’ state of mind with a volatile city like Karachi is somewhat ironical, but with art’s capacity to engage and entertain, it is worth investing one’s spare time in looking through the works on display.

Remember the simple pleasure of judging a book by its cover — which, contrary to popular cliché, is effective and fun. Much like we browse through bookshops to enrich and feed the mind, never knowing when a title might spark the imagination, we should allow art to speak to us — to impact the eye with its chromatic delights and tease the mind with its visual content.

‘Potpourri’, Art Chowk Gallery, Karachi, a general display between curated shows is especially varied and large in the summer season. This year ‘Potpourri 26’ features 79 artworks by as many as 37 artists. The collection’s diversity — a mix of genre paintings, contemporary fare and some odd balls — is meant to cater to a wide audience.

The collection’s diversity — a mix of genre paintings, contemporary fare and some odd balls — is meant to cater to a wide audience

Atif Khan’s digital prints, ‘Landscape of the heart’ and ‘Migration’ were prominent among Potpourri’s visually attractive and conceptually tantalising contemporary artwork collection. As a printmaker romancing the miniature genre, Khan synthesises the two sensibilities with delightful ease. His inspiration is “the great tradition of storytelling” and “its poetic symbolism”. Other than subverting original contextual meanings and peppering work with hidden messages to suggest new, out-of-the-box perspectives, he also concentrates on the surface aesthetics of his imagery. He tempers the critical notes in his work with a humorously appealing “decorative quality” that references the subcontinent’s traditional arts.

The ornamental stance continues in Hira Zubair’s, ‘Siyah kalam’ miniature, throne, gold leaf, gouache on wasli. Using a vocabulary reminiscent of miniature artist Nusra Latif’s art, Zubair blends a striking new mix of power symbols and natural elements, suggesting the rise and fall of dynasties. Translated in a broader contemporary context the work critiques political power struggles. The message in her other canvas, ‘Find out’ is covert but the work’s painting / drawing skills and chromatic effects are just as delicate and appealing as her previous work.

Nadia Rahat’s painting titled ‘Shahjehan available in all shapes, forms and sizes’ with a court jester positioned behind a vacant throne, is yet another visual comment ridiculing inept leadership and dynastic politics. Her style relies on a mix of linear arrangements where decorative vertical and horizontal panels offset faint figurations of Mughal royalty.

Sausan Saulat is among the few young artists who paint realistically rendered figurative forms as protagonists in her paintings. Melding narrative and technique with flair, hers is a contemporary realism where content and technique itself are inverted as tools of criticism. Her painting, ‘Death of an artist’, features a body shrouded in a gaudy, traditionally patterned sheet. The work can be interpreted as an oblique comment on outdated conventions and norms which inhibit freedom of thought and expression.

Quirkiness and fine working skills in a painting are also attention grabbing material. Zara Mahmood’s ‘Mold no I’, acrylics on arches paper, features melon slices strung to a dumpster vehicle which is caught between a cube and a pair of swimming floats. This thingamajig is held together by a screwdriver and a hammer.

Consisting of two heads, Omar Farid’s orange and green amoeba organism improvisation also thrives on idiosyncrasy. Not easily bracketed in any category, the originality of expression in such open-ended works provokes inquiry.

There is a steady clientele that subscribes to the benign beauty of conventional landscapes, city and street scenes, and the Art Chowk collection boasts some pleasing specimens as well as a host of issue-based artworks and new media sculpture that can easily elicit a look far longer than is usual in our digital culture.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, June 26th, 2016