December 20, 2003

In virtually all aspects of life, the notion of latecoming carries negative connotations. This is especially true in art, for successful, committed artists usually manifest their creative talents and distinguish themselves quite early in their career. Latecomers, whether they embark on a career in art after having pursued a different line of work or return to art after a gap of several years, are therefore at a disadvantage. They compete with more established peers, who have exhibited work at both domestic and international venues, for public recognition, sales, and commissions. Even under the best of circumstances, theirs is a lonely struggle.

Munir Saeed, who recently exhibited her work and launched her book Let There Be Light at The Art Gallery, Karachi, is one such latecomer. Although she graduated from the Karachi School of Art in 1970, her first solo exhibition did not take place until 1989. Let There Be Light chronicles her fifteen-year career as an artist.

In this short span of time, she has investigated themes of suffering and isolation in her paintings of dungeons and barred windows and gates, as well as demonstrated her social activism in her ‘Thirsty Thar’ series, sales proceeds from which were donated to the drought victims of Tharparkar. However, by focusing on a limited number of motifs (those of light and shelter), she has imbued her oeuvre with a maturity and individuality often missing from the work of latecomers to art.

Caves as a form of shelter take centre stage in Munir Saeed’s latest exhibition. While she depicts man-made forms of architecture as well, these can be seen in all the paintings in which they occur but one at a great distance from inside a cave. The effect emotionally isolates the viewer, who peers through the cave opening, from civilization and the rest of humanity.

The fact that none of the paintings shows a living presence heightens this feeling of aloneness. Indeed, the interior of caves serves as a motif in the artist’s current work that reinforces the theme of seclusion.

The artist explained in a 1992 interview reprinted in Let There Be Light that she received inspiration from ‘the deep recesses of the heart’, expressing the view that ‘a painting is... nothing but the feelings, sentiments and emotions of a painter, translated into colours on a canvas.’

A personal tragedy led her to recommence painting several years after she had received her degree in art; the canvas, therefore, became the surface on which she attempted to come to terms with her loss. Although suffering, which featured prominently as a leitmotif in the Thar series and other previous works, is missing from her recent paintings, the subject of isolation continues to hold her interest and provide ideas. While the pain of loss is gone, the sting of isolation remains, possibly echoing the artist’s feelings of emotional separation from the mainstream.

Caves also hold spiritual meaning for the artist, for they are a place where one can meditate undisturbed by worldly matters. The golden light that floods into darkened caves can be construed as rays of the divine revelation that comes to the one who seeks mystical communion with God away from humanity and the concerns of everyday life.

In this sense, then, isolation is self-imposed, unlike Munir Saeed’s earlier paintings where it seems to be enforced by other people or one’s circumstances. In most of the paintings, the light entering the caves is soft and diffused, while in one it burns with intense heat through two unevenly shaped holes, one lying on top of the other, in the cavernous ruins.

Since the interior of the cave is almost completely black, the openings look like glowing furnaces fed with coals. In this particular work, light lacks the introspective quality it possesses in the other paintings on display.

Some of Munir Saeed’s most intriguing work in her latest show is made on hand-made paper, which has a corrugated surface with uneven edges that very appropriately brings to mind the appearance of the walls of a cave up close. Other notable exceptions are to be found in paintings that have been created in cool colours such as ultramarine blue, mauve, and emerald green rather than the warm, earth tones of yellow, orange, brown, and red that dominate this exhibition.