Risham Syed’s work creates a narrative stitched out of juxtapositions — her paintings enter the third dimension, visually and conceptually contextualised through objects in their foregrounds to create new meanings. Connections are established across time to create alternate histories and new considerations for the present. Her solo show that recently concluded at the Canvas Gallery in Karachi brings together old and new works, looking at both individual and collective histories, with both cultural and political implications.

Syed’s work is integral in understanding the power of contextual display, as her paintings are viewed in conjunction with objects or other paintings/visuals that complete the narrative. It is not just about what the artist paints, but what she chooses to show or omit, and what appears next to it, which adds layers of meaning and manipulates the way a work is read. The artist previously applied this to the city of Lahore and ideas of change and loss, and she now turns towards history and notions of post-colonialism, which the South Asian mind seems unable to detach from.

‘Cheetah And Stag With Two Indians’ is an installation featuring two paintings, a sheet of bright red cloth hanging from a hook, and a reversed poetic verse by Sindhi poet and saint Sachal Sarmast. The paintings are portions of a painting of the same name by George Stubbs from 1764, inspired by a stag hunt at Windsor Great Park with a cheetah brought to Britain as a gift from Governor General of Madras to King George III. In a curious twist, the hunt ended with the cheetah being chased away by the stag instead, after two failed attempts at catching its prey. The painting — showing the two Indian attendants removing the cheetah’s hood to release it on to the stag — is regarded as one of Stubbs’ finest works, his depiction of the Indian subjects is seen to be humanising and free of condescension — a rarity for that time.

Risham Syed presents her paintings in the form of installations to create alternate meanings

Here, the portions of the painting that the artist chooses to depict with focus and attention on the Indian subjects seems to question this view, while drawing a connection with the isolated cheetah tail, perhaps for a comparison between their predicaments. Together with Sarmast’s verses it looks at the unfair treatment, dehumanisation of people, oppressive colonial practices and uneven power dynamics in British colonial rule. By removing the animals and the idyllic scenery, our focus is on the anguish of the men, seeing them as people rather than exotic props to complete someone else’s narrative.

Similarly, ‘Over To Jallianwala’ draws connections between three different incidences of British exploitation of, and disregard for, Indian lives. The poster for recruitment of troops for World War I, in an ornate gilded frame, calls to the 73,000 unnamed British Indian soldiers who lost their lives in someone else’s war. Simultaneously, their brothers were being thrown into the Andaman Island jail as rebels, the image of which is seen printed on the quilt beside it. The title of the piece brings both events to culmination by referencing the infamous Jallianwala Bagh incident where the mass killings happened. The pipal leaves embroidered on to the quilt are used as a symbol of the resilience of the rebels, as they tend to grow out of walls from bird droppings without the need to be planted, eventually compromising the structural integrity of the wall.

‘A Chronicle Punctuated’ series is an earlier work with less political themes, but still uses the power of contextualisation to create interesting visuals. Syed collects and paints images from the present, juxtaposed with curious objects seemingly representing a lived past. The display is something in between museum, antique shop and an old aunt’s cabinet décor.

“Cheetah and Other Stories” was on display at the Canvas Gallery in Karachi from January 15 to January 24, 2019

Published in Dawn, EOS, February 24th, 2019