RAWALPINDI: Creativity and new ideas were on display in the galleries of the National College of Arts’ (NCA) Rawalpindi campus on Sunday, where Fine Art undergraduates from the 2016-17 batch presented their thesis projects.

The exhibition was inaugurated by Higher Education Commission (HEC) Chairman Dr Mukhtar Ahmed, and attended by students, their parents, artists and diplomats from the twin cities.

NCA Principal Dr Murtaza Jafri said: “As always, the Rawalpindi campus has produced an overwhelming quality of work.”

“Having viewed the process in many stages while the work was being produced, the thesis work is very interesting.

“Besides investigating formal concerns, the work contextualises opinions, personal queries and beliefs, social practices, gender politics and everything within and around the experiences of these students, who have boldly presented their views in the degree show,” he added.

The exhibited work varied in form, medium and content. Students explored personal and contextual ideas within a body of work not limited by the medium.

Fatima Afridi’s ‘Feel the Difference’ featured an installation of marble, wood and gouache on vasli and digital images, and looked at miniatures from a different perspective.

‘Untitled’ by Neeli Ahmed was concerned with unmasking the ramification of time and its effects through her sculptural work, while Noor Fatima’s ‘Temporal Paradox’ investigated infinity stones through an exploration of the multiverse, in terms of the paradox of time, with sculptures and installations in steel, aluminium and other mediums.

Syed Sanabil Hassan’s watercolour and pen drawings and gypsum and resin sculpture reflected the connection between man, nature, the universe, the spiritual world and hidden patterns, to create a perfect metaphysical being.

In ‘Immaculate Intrusion’, Uswa Ahmed’s paintings and video installations decode how spaces have transformed, investigating imagined spaces that have been corrupted by a virus.

‘Curiosity’ by Maheerah Ali stretched an object using mixed media on canvas, until an image began to lose its original form.

Rohama Anwaar’s photography and screen prints focused on creating awareness about people who are unique or different because of natural or accidental interventions.

Ali Asghar’s ‘Untitled’ showed a one-sided dialogue between the being and the creator using watercolours on marbled vasli.

Mahnoor Asad used stop motion animation, pen on mylar and newsprints to show ‘The Seed of Sin’ hidden in the human body. Bodies are dissected and put through devices of torture – the room where the work was displayed was called the ‘torture room’.

‘Untitled’ by Adnan Haider depicted a bomb explosion in Parachinar using latex on wood cut.

Shaheera Mughal used paper and ink to present a journey of change under looming calamity in ‘One Breath Away’, while Sadaf Saeed’s ‘Traverse of Continuity’ spoke of the connection of trees and humans through organic forms, using pencil on paper.

In ‘Indelible Happening’, Rida-i-Zahra portrayed zinc prints and a journal about an incident that has a haunting effect on a person’s life, while Sana Zara Zaidi’s ‘Mizpah’ is a conversation between the dead and the undead, told through gouache, gold and pen on vasli.

The ‘Shifting Silhouette’ by Maha Saleem unveiled the darkness of the hallows realm using various mediums, and included a box room called ‘the inner voice’.

‘Amalgamation’ by Sobia Salman revolved around traditional patterns from her native region woven onto paper to express how new spaces impact her native area. In ‘A Sequential Crowd’ Syed Tehzeebul Hassan searches for individual identity within a crowd, by pixelating the portrait of someone familial and influential.

Habib Hussain presented continuity by introducing a new material, called zeltx, which is an upgraded version of cold porcelain. In his sculptures, Mushtaq Hussain depicted the suffocation of a human because of environmental changes.

Jazib Jacob explored the growth and transformation of molecules in pen and ink, while Manal Kafeel’s ‘Of Pulls and Stretches’ depicted the presence of the body in the absence of their physical being.

‘Secrets Hidden in Ice’ by Saleha Kamran told the journey of a hero, overcoming fear and trekking into the unknown. Umair Kamran explored the ‘Re-enactment of Memories’ and how the visual is reproduced.

Ammara Mairaj’s work ‘The Burrow’ explored drawing spaces, created through ink and wax forms on paper, that lead to imaginary spaces.

Komal Nadeem captured the essence of attraction and repulsion in the absence of the human body, while Sundus Pervaiz’s ‘Garbie’ is about the contradiction between reality and fantasy.

Published in Dawn January 16th, 2017