April 13, 2002

Masood Haider reports on the recently opened two exhibitions of NCA artists in New York

Two shows opened in the second week of March in New York with Pakistani artists making their mark internationally. One was at the United Nations gallery in the main secretariat and the other at the Indo-Centre in the Chelsea art district.

Talha Rathore and Fasihullah Ahsan, husband and wife team, now living in New York, both trained as miniature painters at National College of Art in Lahore. Fasihullah has been working after a semester of graphic design at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. His works on exhibition were done before coming to the United States and do not reflect the influences and the experiences of the milieu he finds himself in.

Talha Rahore’s paintings, on the other hand, were done over the last two years, and are strongly connected to her Big Apple experience. Her earlier works reflect the impact of what must be a radical cultural change, but the later works celebrate the fusion of miniature painting and New York life.

Talha Rathore has taken the subway map as the basis of her wasli surface, and she builds up layers of colour with a central motif of unfolding plants and flowers. One can see a gradual development of colour and the flower form as it becomes more intricate in its drawings and the colour becomes stronger and bolder.

Around the borders of her paintings, she uses block prints of the plant form to recall the traditional miniature border. This approach makes the work more open and visually exciting. Her innovative yet subtle evocative forms and feminist themes are outstanding.

Judging from the body of work on display, it looks as though Rathore is on her way to be recognized as one of the most talented of Pakistani miniaturists on the western scene barring none.

Mr. Shamshad Ahmad, Pakistan’s ambassador at the United Nations, Professor Iqbal Hasan, and Salima Hashmi (both former principals of National College of Art) along with several top UN officials were present at the opening of the show.

Among the visitors were the owners of the Bose-Pacia Gallery in New York, who were highly appreciative of the two artists’ works. The centre-piece of the show was Fasihulah Ahsan’s paintings of the city of Lahore, which is an unusual rendering of the city’s lights in a traditional format.

The second exhibit of five Pakistani painters, at Chelsea art district’s Indo-centre, entitled Painting over the Lines, was a well attended affair. It was organized by Karin Miller-Lewis and Mahnaz Fancy of the Indo-centre. The exhibition was held in conjunction with a series of public programmes that explore the rich terrain of contemporary Pakistan — from the influences of Islam, to the relationship with India and interchange with contemporary world culture, current media perceptions of Pakistan and how these developments are expressed in a broad range of creative activities including the literary and musical.

The work of five Pakistani painters, all former students of NCA, underscores the contribution of that college’s department of fine arts to Pakistani painting. The artists participating in the exhibition were Sylvat Aziz, Ali Raza, Rana Rashid, Risham Syed and Hamra Abbas.

Sylvat Aziz and Ali Raza, who live in North America, were present at the opening and participated in a discussion following the opening. They spoke about their experiences as Pakistani artists living here, and the impact of the milieu on their art.

Mahnaz Fancy, the dynamic programme and development officer at the Indo-centre is the moving spirit behind the centre’s activity. The centre is a brainchild of Rajiv Choudhry, who is dedicated to making it a window for the work of artists from South Asia.

In a selection from a series of digital prints made from her own photographs, borrowed art historical images and paint, Sylvat Aziz addressed important if elusive social and political issues, such as violence in a romanticized past and the place of Muslim women in modern Pakistan and the west.

Hamra Abbas, using the critical strategies of conceptual art, placed consumer products on pedestals in front of her carefully executed miniatures. Her works lampooned the ubiquity of commercial values and the cultural inflation of high art, suggesting the complexities of Pakistani society owed much to its ambivalent relationship with the global culture.

With sardonic humour, Rashid Rana’s paintings incorporated imagery from the current popular films, the left-over monuments of the subcontinent’s colonial past, and Urdu text. He underlined the difficulty of locating and defining a culture after colonialism and in this age of globalization.

Ali Raza created semi-narrative, allegorical diptychs. Revising images and techniques borrowed from the Mughal miniature and contemporary practice, he explored the connections and gaps, intersections and clashes between past and present, South Asia and the global art world.

In her needlework series, Risham Syed made icons of the familiar electric irons, microwaves and western-packaged baby products found in the middle-class Pakistani homes. But her spare compositions in conjunction with her deadpan titles also stripped the images of their allure. Her use of sentimental feminine imagery quietly went against the grain to expose and urge society beyond the trappings that restrained women’s lives.

After being shown in New York, Painting over the Lines will be presented by South Asian Visual Arts Collective at the York Quay Gallery, Harbour Front, in Toronto, Canada, from July 12 to September 15.