KARACHI: The invite to the show The Future is Now that began at the Art Chowk Gallery on Thursday reads: ‘drawing is as crucial to visual art as the alphabet is to writing’. Though it would be difficult not to go with the claim, drawing should not just be confined to the assertion that it is the basic element to comprehend and create art. Its worthiness as an art form itself is of great significance, because if you are witnessing a piece of drawing which is as evocative and powerful as an artwork done in any other medium, it doesn’t make any qualitative difference.

About four dozen exhibits are on display which will run till Sept 1. It is a testimony to the fact that Pakistani art is hale and hearty, not that it needed to reassure us. The first artist whose work can be seen is Naeem Akhtar. His collage and pencil-on-paper drawings capture the faces of children. It is obvious that his keen sense of observation is his strength. Akhtar’s effort is more to do with highlighting the characters that he is sketching and thereby making the viewer aware of the socioeconomic stratum that they belong to. Of course, that’s not his only motive. For him, life should be looked at holistically. Therefore, the innocent smile in the eyes of ‘Alan’ dilutes the effects of the peripheries that he’s supposed to survive in.

Saeed Lakho also is quite observant. But he doesn’t want to reveal his subject readily. So he opts for the route where symbolism takes precedence over realism. His symbolism is unfussy and gradually allows the viewer to get the hang of his message. As case in point is ‘Gathri’ (graphite on paper).

Waqas Khatri’s ‘An Old Man’ (ballpoint pen on paper) is a fine, fine attempt. The use of light and dark shades (call them strokes if you like) in underscoring the expression of the character he has portrayed give it a close-to-life touch, and the resemblance of the subject to a celebrity figure heightens the overall effect of the artwork.

Abid Hussain rounds it all off with an unmissable image captioned ‘Flood on Coast’ (pen on paper). The title of the scene is self-axiomatic, but even if it was a nameless picture, the artist’s talent to tell a story through a single shot would have sufficed.

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2016