KARACHI: The human condition is the only subject that artists deal with. The rest — politics, socio-cultural upheaval, economic strife, individuals’ struggle in society etc — are topics that the human condition entails. This is what a five-person three-day show that began at the Arts Council’s Ahmed Pervaiz Gallery on Thursday also touches upon. The five young painters who are taking part in the show are all female graduates of the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture.

It has to be said that the young girls see the human condition as something that needs to be constantly revisited in order for it to improve. Now improvement is a relative term. For some, improvement can be measured in economic terms, for others, intellectual growth is a fine indicator of it … and there’s more. The artists seem to agree with all these notions.

Nimrah Nadeem’s assessment of things can be understood in the psychological domain. Her mixed media works — with titles such as ‘Wall of Grey’ and ‘Grey Quartet’ — border on abstraction. The abstraction does not hit the viewer on the technical level, rather it is the contextual drift of the artist that makes the viewer mull over her subject. Her frames are crammed with disparate images, signifying chaos caused by multiple factors that make life an arduous journey.

Shiza Hai thinks along the same lines but her approach to the issue is a bit realistic. One of her oil paintings, as mentioned by Fasih Qureshi who is in charge of the gallery, is marked by the posture of her protagonist. The curled up character doesn’t need to look up or look out of the frame to convey her message. The posture says it all.

Anousha Hassan chooses photography to capture images that she believes depict the human condition, Raahima Junaid employs monoprinting and Dania Shah Khan uses graphite, and on occasion coloured pencil, to achieve the same result. Looking at their work, one can safely say that while the betterment of the human condition requires involvement of multiple factors, the future of Pakistani art is not in unsafe hands.

Published in Dawn, April 28th, 2018