KARACHI: Meher Afroz is one of Pakistan’s rare artists whose sensitive approach to both life and art is looked upon by the generation of painters that have followed her. So when she comes up with an exhibition and gives it the title of Aap Beeti, which can be seen at the Chawkandi Art Gallery, lovers of creative pursuits take notice.

Aap Beeti is an Urdu phrase that roughly translates as autobiography. Here, it has been used in the sense of a journey. This is the journey that the artist has undertaken in terms of physical exertion (migration) and creative diligence. This becomes apparent when the viewer enters the gallery and sees, before the line of wonderful exhibits, a couplet on the wall by none other than Jaun Elia:

Hum aandhion ke bunn mein kisi karavan ke thay
Jaaney kahan se aaey hain jaaney kahan ke thay

[In this gust of wind, I was there with the caravan
I don’t know where I have come from or where I belong]

There are two thematic strands to Afroz’s artworks that she has put on display. They pretty much have to do with her technique as well. The untitled pieces done in acrylic and silver/gold leaf on wasli have a spiritual tinge to them, whereas the ones in which she has employed graphite on archive paper have a physical resonance which is mainly to do with her trajectory as an artist. What’s common in them is the refined and delicate way with which the artist has expressed those sides to her being. In a graphite exhibit, the greyness that is diffused throughout the frame, dominating the whiteness in the middle, is topped by a black square on which the Urdu word safar (travel) is written.

Even if the word wasn’t placed in that position, the artwork is so replete with meaning that the first thing, or one of the first things, which would’ve hit the viewer’s mind is … journey.

The exhibition concludes on May 18.

Published in Dawn, May 15th, 2018