KARACHI: Abdul Jabbar Gull has established credentials as an artist. Like all creative people worth their salt who work with brass and wood he tries to breathe life into the artworks that he puts together, lending tactility to them — and we tend to associate the tactile sense only with living beings.

An exhibition of his works titled Winged Thoughts opened at the Chawkandi Art Gallery on Tuesday. The show is an example of how solid materials can be used to signify temporal and transitory objects.

Here it would be apt to remind ourselves of a character from Greek mythology called Icarus: he uses the wings made by his father to fly but doesn’t pay heed to his warning that never fly too high because the sun can melt his wings. He pays a heavy price for not being a good listener.

In Gull’s case, there are two sides to his artworks on display at the gallery. One gives the impression that he is influenced by the story of Icarus, but then there are pieces that suggest wings in his art symbolise the power to imagine and create. Both could be true.

All the exhibits are untitled, so the viewer has to make an effort to grasp the artist’s drift with the help of the main rubric. In piece number six, Gull works with brass, whereas in exhibit seven wood and brass, and in 11 wood, aluminium and brass are used. The preference of media is related to the thought process. The more the medium, the less complicated are his ideas. A case in point is

exhibit seven where faces, or their impressions, in a mechanical setup stand out. The artist is delineating that facet of life which we tend to disapprove but can’t escape — sometimes even when we have the ability and the genuine urge to fly out of the scene.

Apart from the interpretational part of the show, Gull’s skillfulness as an artist must be acknowledged. There are not too many artists in the country who make brass emote.

The exhibition concludes on Sept 20.

Published in Dawn, September 13th, 2017