KARACHI: One has to hand it to the ancient Greek philosophers for constructing theories from which thinkers and artists to date are benefitting. In certain cases, contemporary painters, sculptors and photographers take a cue from those hypotheses and develop their own arguments to build their art on. The adage ‘art imitates life’ is one such thought, and an exhibition organised by the FOMMA Trust at its DHA Art Centre Zamzama Park, Imitation of Life, which began on Tuesday, has the same intention. The works of three talented photographers/artists — Haseeb Amjad, Nazia Akram and Jaffer Hasan — according to their statement, attempts to ‘elicit feelings of association and familiarity’. Well, they succeed to a great degree in achieving their objective because all three home in on concepts and ideas that engage art buffs in a way that does hint at a connection between the artworks and those viewing them.

The show also intends to use photography both as a medium and ‘as a point of reflection from where art stems’. It’s a Herculean task because it is not easy to identify a specific point from which one can say, with certainty, the art of an individual has originated. And this is where all three artists should be commended since they do manage to communicate that particular position to followers of art.

For example, Nazia’s acrylic-on-wood exhibits provide the viewer with a fair bit of knowledge on the source of her creative pursuits: the tangible aspects of life. One can see an interesting blend of the visual and the tactile in her work. Be it ‘Windows at Fez’, ‘Blackout’ or ‘Clothes Line’, the viewer gets attracted to her artworks because they identify with them as something that’s taken right out of the book of life (experienced).

Haseeb Amjad and Jaffer Hasan, on the other hand, enhance the visual experience with their sharp eye for detail. Both men turn tiny moments into mega events, and do that by keeping true to a Shakespearean line: “The eye sees not itself, but by reflection, by some other things.”

The exhibition will run until Oct 12.

Published in Dawn, October 6th, 2016