May 11, 2002

Kunj Art Gallery in Karachi was the venue of the sophisticated energies of three of Pakistan’s senior artists, who have served the art movement with a sincere fervour.

Painting Pakistan’s history, heritage and culture has been these artists’ motivation for many years. Perhaps cliched in content, but novel in technique, the display had a lot to recommend it. It was an opportunity to view the artistic products of different techniques of printmaking: offset machine prints by Aftab Zafar, digital prints by Abdul Salim and woodcuts by Mahboob Ali.

Printmaking, whereby the first image can be reproduced over and over, has not been able to gain a strong foothold as an art form in Pakistan just yet. In contrast, many other countries already boast of galleries reserved for the display of contemporary prints.

Aftab Zafar hails from NCA, Lahore. He is known for his distinct rural landscapes, peering at you from calendars, brochures and other published material from time to time. Renowned for his ink and watercolours, with a firm grip on drawing, in this exhibition he surprised the audience with his offset machine prints.

This method makes use of an inked image printed on a rubber cylinder, which is then transferred on to paper. Armed with a sense of purpose, Zafar paints the culture of this soil with a religious relish. His themes have remained unchanged over the years: Quranic verses, local and national festivals, village life, etc.

His work on display was figurative, humming with a great deal of festive activity. The practice with pen drawing allowed him to explore and exhaust minute details, like the embroidered pattern on the folds of a drapery, a painted carvings on a swing, and the countless wrinkles on an old man’s forehead.

Mahboob Ali’s woodcuts were replete with rich cultural references from Lahore’s Walled City, a favourite with many local artists and photographers. A stairway disappearing mysteriously into the distance, high arches, covering narrow, winding alleys, intricately carved wooden pillars, glimpses of old mosques and havelis, all enchanted with the ambience they portrayed. The compositions, often broken into a grid of equal squares, were reminiscent of Zahoor-ul-Akhlaq’s work.

Woodcut is an ancient technique in which it is difficult to achieve tonal variations. But Mahboob Ali’s seasoned hand managed as many as 50 shades in a single print.

Another early graduate (1952) of the old Mayo School of Art, Abdul Salim, presented a synthesis of art and technology in the form of his digital prints. These, when seen from a distance, could easily be mistaken for paintings. Composed in electrically vibrant multi-colours, these also came with an ethnic flavour. Crafted in effortless spontaneous strokes, it was the immediacy and the casualness of the style that was captivating about these prints.

The subject was rural figures from across the country, dressed in traditional attire. Salim’s focus was on portraits: a folk singer, a Punjabi maiden, a tribesman from NWFP, a Sindhi villager, etc. The background was merely complementing the colours, filling in the negative space. There were also some full-length figures, some in action and some posing statically, their eyes wincing in the sharp sunlight.

In appearance, these emulated the mannerisms of oil paintings but fell short of the tangible, built-up, texture associated with the real oils. On close encounter, they revealed themselves in all the flatness and absolute sleekness of a printed image.

The public response to the show was hard to categorize. Many art patrons left with mixed sentiments and thought-provoking questions: Is it acceptable to let technology, which now permeates many aspects of our life, invade the boundaries of art as well? Should the machine be encouraged to replace the handwork? What is the value of the computer-aided art, after all? Was this display an arena for the romantic versus the practical, the futuristic and the mass-productive? Could the frontiers of art be let open to new influences? etc., etc.

These questions are worth pondering over.