KARACHI: Simplicity is a virtue. In art, it goes a step ahead: it makes life look like an oft-told story with no or very few listeners; simplicity compels art lovers to listen to life’s message. An exhibition of Sadaf Naeem’s paintings titled Surrounded opened at the Chawkandi Art Gallery on Tuesday. It does exactly the same. You already know what the artist is telling you, and yet you feel you are listening to it [the message contained in her artworks] for the first time.

Sadaf’s love of nature is evident from the exhibits on view. Love of nature automatically implies a profound admiration for colours. The artist knows that the language of colours is readily understandable to all and sundry. This awareness enables her to talk about, with effortless ease, what we consider the ‘bigger’ issues. The ‘Imbricate’ series (oil and acrylic on canvas) is a testimony to it. On surface, the paintings give off the vibe that they are only about appreciating beauty. They are; but there’s more to it. ‘Imbricate 2’ is a striking work of art where what’s in the foreground (a tree) assumes a secondary position and the floral colourfulness in the background catches the eye first. The inadvertent shift of the gaze!

The exhibition enters into a philosophical domain with artworks such as ‘Existence’ and ‘Connection’ (oil on canvas). In the former, the green, let’s just say fertile, atmosphere is upstaged by a (ball-like) geometric shape. It creates a visual contrast that allows the viewer to mull over how we tend to see things in our everyday lives. The latter has a cosmic touch to it. The ‘connection’ that Sadaf is alluding to is the link that the soil has with the environment that envelops it. And environment does not necessarily have to be climatic.

The exhibition will run until April 3.

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2017