May 10, 2003

“Cultural practice goes back to values and we need to go back to those values. Whether it’s art or the way we live our lives there should be balance as well as love and passion,” says Sumaya Durrani

Sumaya Durrani’s first solo exhibition in Karachi was held in 1989. Few influences of American postmodern art were familiar in art circles at that time and her work, large, colour-saturated surfaces containing linear, box-like shapes, was new and exciting. She had returned from the States in ’88 after earning a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan in ’84 and a Master’s in jewellry making, design and metal work in ’86.

Joining the National College of Arts, Lahore, as a lecturer in ’88, Sumaya initiated a two-month workshop on environmental sculpture, which was the first of its kind in the country and a great success with her students. The artist exhibited her work in the US, Canada, Norway and the UK, and proceeded to take part in group shows in Pakistan.

She held a solo exhibition in Lahore in ’88 followed by the Karachi exhibition. Sumaya was a new and welcome addition to art circles in Pakistan and was spoken of as ‘a very exciting and promising young artist’. Then followed marriage and two year tenure in Turkey where she joined the department of design at Bilkent University as assistant professor.

Another solo exhibition was held in ’91. It was a remarkable tour-de-force, in which she had eschewed the colour elements that she felt interfered with certain concerns, “bringing attention to itself rather than things outside...” It was a strong collection of work that potently addressed basic gender issues.

Integrating mixed-media effects were an attempt to close the barriers between fine arts and graphics. The work was described as A Woman’s View of Man Viewing Woman, but it also carried acerbic undertones of the way women feel they are ‘viewed’. A dialogue had been initiated and questions had been raised; one waited for more of the artist’s complex and stimulating assertions, but for ten years Sumaya maintained her silence. We talked of the intervening years.

“You need time to process your work. Whichever creative work you are doing there are life experiences that come in to your intricately designed.

Until 2001 Sumaya was the principal of the Pakistan Gem and Jewellry Institute, and visiting professor at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture. She continued to paint and to be spoken of in art circles as a gifted painter. Her work was an intensely personal expression articulating her feelings and recording her life, but it was shared with very few.

Recently, Sumaya decided it was time to exhibit the sequences she had completed over the years. She plans, during this year, to display the entire range of her work in a retrospective mood beginning with work completed between ‘93 and ’95.

I asked her why now and she explained: “For the last ten years I have been researching a project which involved quite a bit of travel. I changed my synopsis about three times because the more you learn, the more you realize how much more there is to discover.

“My ambition now is to contribute something to the country in a spirit of nation-building and to me that is education. It must come from here not from the west. Some of the solutions that you see in the west are very good, but without roots. The results are not lasting. Solutions to the problems do not necessarily involve art. Cultural practice goes back to values and we need to go back to those values. Whether it’s art or the way we live our lives there should be balance as well as love and passion. Now I would not like to leave Pakistan to do my research, I write papers and keep submitting them and put knowledge to use. I think it will take me another two years to complete.”

Her family room-cum-studio contains literally hundreds of canvases and mounted surfaces stacked against the walls around the room. They range in size from medium to the most enormous canvases that cover one-third of the wall. Viewing the sequence of pieces due to be shown was a deja-vu experience, bringing vivid recollection of the ’93 show.

The subject, an anonymous nude figure, is placed amid varied visual metaphors that act as the fragmented elements of a puzzle. Blank picture frames balanced by an assortment of delicately wrought vases and urns fill corners of the exquisitely textured surfaces. Empty and grouped together, they create an air of expectancy as though placed in a particular way prior to being filled.

The images appeared throughout the sequence, until the focal subject appeared in a garden-like setting, a touch of colour entered the visual and one of the containers was filled with a leafy organic shape.

“It was a very happy time in my life.” The journey continued though the form changed to a ‘Gainsborough’-type portrait, classic in its beauty, the figure cut off at the waist by a gondola-like shape. This image is seen with exotic fish and other symbols to be read according to the dictates of the observer.

Changes in the sequence assimilated organic elements, large feathery-pencilled forms, ethereal, like the petals of a full-blown rose ruffled by a breeze and filling the surface with irregular outlines.

Sensual, exuding the illusion of transparency, they hold myriad connotations: A dove appears partially covering the form. A delicately drawn four-poster bed has a side table with a bonsai tree.In a fascinating narrative the tree takes over the story blossoming joyously with green leaves against the delicate tracery of a textured background.

Infinitely subtle, there is no single interpretation to Sumaya’s work. Those who are willing to explore a new language may discover ample reward in the complexity, texture and refinement of the immaculate works of art being displayed at Karachi’s Chawkandi Art.