KARACHI: To choose Aath Pehar as the name for a group exhibition under way at the Full Circle Gallery is a bit unique. The phrase means a whole day or round the clock. One single day contains 24 hours, which divided by three equals eight. The word aath in Urdu/Hindi means eight. Now the one factor that can be linked to the show is that there are eight artists participating in it: Asad Kamran, Marium M. Habib, S.M. Raza, Salman Hassan, Wasif Afridi, Yumna, Yusra Taqi Allawala and Zohaib Hassan. There’s more to it than meets the eye, though.

What is it? Well, one of the artists in his statement quotes a verse by Altaf Husain Hali:

Ek dard ho bus aath pehar dil mein ke jis ko
Takhfeef dawa se ho na taskeen dua se

[The kind of heartache that I suffer all day long
Doesn’t get better either by medication or through prayers]

This is the key point around which the efforts of the immensely talented painters pivot: heartache. In order to create art, one needs to have empathy with others. And for empathy to materialise in something tangible, for example a painting or a sculpture, the heart of the empathiser usually takes precedence over the mind.

Looking closely at the works on display this particular aspect comes through loud and clear. Artworks such as the ones touching upon the subject of memory or shrivelling flowers or even a heart boxed in another heart signify that for these young creative souls, it’s important to externalise the internal world of feelings so that they’re better able to express their understanding of the world outside. This is where the distance between the personal and the impersonal diminishes to become the universal.

The exhibition concludes on July 2.

Published in Dawn, July 2nd, 2021