KARACHI: Artists don’t actually discriminate between non-textual images and visuals based on text. After all, alphabets or letters too are images. It is those who see art only in terms of realistic or abstract depictions of living beings and all things associated with them that distinguish words from the rest of the visual creations. An exhibition of artist Rashid Arshed’s paintings titled Text and Texture that’s under way at the Koel Gallery is a reminder of how seriously artists take the written word.

It is evident that Rashid is in love with calligraphy. This love basically stems from his ability to appreciate the efficacy and aesthetics of literature. Efficacy and aesthetics are mutually reinforcing forces. The same can be said about fine art, or any genre of art for that matter. If art touches your heart, with whatever message it entails, it is efficacious. How it touches the heart depends on the aesthetic grace with which the artist has tried to make it work.

Rashid, being a senior art practitioner, is aware of this process. The good thing about his art is that both the above-mentioned factors work in tandem, not by way of one leading to the other. So, the viewer is in for a visual treat of a unique kind.

Mind you, the artist employs text in his untitled oil-on-canvas paintings not as a separate element but as part of the colours that he uses. Red plays an important part in his creative consciousness, and when text in black appears with red, it doesn’t seem to create a contrast but becomes part of the colour(ful) family.

The calligraphic contributions to the artworks lend a spiritual air to the whole effort. For those who look for a message or meaning in every work of art, spirituality in Rashid’s paintings works both as medium and message.

The exhibition, dedicated to Imran Mir, concludes on March 8.

Published in Dawn, March 4th, 2018