Viewing the work of young, contemporary artists of today, one is often aware of the communication of ideas and technologies that comes with the exchange of cultural interaction. The freedom to experiment with different ideas and mediums allow artists to work with art that is open to numerous interpretations, according to the dialogue created with individual audiences.

These thoughts came to mind at a recent introduction of four gifted young artists from Lahore at the Canvas Gallery, Karachi, in an exhibition titled “Till Human Voices Wake Us”.

The display captured one’s interest with the amazing diversity of direction and media displayed. Sanie Bokhari worked with oil on varied materials including organza, cloth and acrylic glass, and with digital photographs on wood. There were multiple designs of varied flowers included in the work. Bokhari is an artist who desires to explore ideas through a variety of mediums and format.

The exhibition captures the interest with amazing diversity of direction and media

Madhya Leghari contributed four oil on canvas paintings to the show. The colour blue in her work represents the sky or perhaps the sea, acting as background to the portrait of her mother. The window image reminded one of references to ‘the window of the world’, in the viewer’s mind uniting people globally.

Explaining her work, the artist says, “The association of blue and leftover light (sky, water, horizon), is acknowledged in these images, where a sense of self is isolated and passive. Blue is, thus, not the colour of things or objects but of the distance between oneself and another.”

Moving on in the gallery, one passed light switches and a valve fixed to the wall, espied a large, old-fashioned key fixed to an ancient key holder on the wall. Looking closer one realised that these were all paintings on backgrounds that matched the gallery walls. There was also on display a brightly coloured painting of a doll / letter holder, referring nostalgically to times past when one received letters through the post. These were the work of Rabia Ejaz who took her BA from the Beaconhouse National University in 2011, and was the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship that allowed her to earn an MFA with a distinction from the Pratt Institute, New York.

The artist said that she painted these everyday objects and placed them on the wall as a reminder that society in general tends to ignore things and comfortably pass them by. The artist stated that her work was about the ‘lives of walls’. “They are convolutedly entwined with ours. Unknowingly we touch walls more than we touch other human beings. We decorate them in times of joy and lean against them when sorrow inevitably wrecks our existence,” she adds.

Nursery colours, pinks and blues designed the work of Zahrah Ehsan, whose skilfully painted oil on canvas works created a setting for a little girl’s toys. Yet exploring the imagery one discovered rage in the form of a doll tossed on the roof of a doll-house, crowned with a child’s cup that covered her head. The artworks acted perhaps as annotation symbolic of childhood dreams and the shattering of expectations when faced with the myth of a rarely existent ‘happy ever after’.

Ehsan who did her BFA with honours from the NCA in 2012, recently participated in the Arjumand Painting Award Competition held at Gallery 6, Islamabad where she received the Arjumand Painting Award.

“Till Human Voices Wake Us” was an exhibition that showed the work of artists of depth and honesty with considerable talent at the start of their art adventure.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, October 18th, 2015

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