"If You Have Tears’ is an unusually meditative exhibition. The works in the recent curatorial project by senior art critic Quddus Mirza at Canvas Gallery in Karachi radiate a mellow pace and astonish our expectations of contemporary art that represents water.

At first, viewers may enter the gallery expecting vivid imagery or sculptures that attempt to elementarily engulf the theme of the show. However, there is ample creative depiction of the life-building element woven into the exhibition as unexpected stories explored in various media, including video, installations, drawings, photographs and water itself — in the form of ice.

The exhibition constitutes emerging and established artists whose innovative representations of water extend, but are not limited to, its consumption, environmental and ecological crisis, natural disasters and the realm of the spiritual and the personal.

Lahore-based artists Sehrish Mustafa and Hamid Hanbhi’s photographic prints and monochromatic drawings, respectively, are displayed in the first room of the gallery.

Mustafa’s prints are something of a visual reverie. They include close-up shots of a female body (some images reveal the body in a bathtub) where the photographed limbs are often hard to distinguish. Even though the soaking body being looked at is not the viewer’s own body, the imagery evokes a personal recollection. For instance, several of Mustafa’s photographs, including ‘Rebirth’ and ‘The Veil Remains’ depict, among other things, lovely swirls of clothes, that transport me into a mental zone with my thoughts pacing. While gazing at the images, I discern a desire for the company of friends but also solitude, perhaps the latter more so in my mind.

In ‘If You Have Tears’ artists represent their own, and the world’s, relationship with water

I am soon jolted out of my private train of thought and connect with Hamid Hanbhi’s dusty and larger drawings that wonderfully contrast with the clarity and intimacy of Mustafa’s prints.

In Khamosh Manzar 1, 3 and 6, Hanbhi uses kohl powder to reconstruct the flooding of his hometown from a decade ago. His choice of medium is conscious: culturally, kohl is often associated with cleansing and clarity of vision. The use of kohl powder in hazy drawings thus result as an oxymoron. The works bring me closer to a traumatic social experience, where excess of unruly water can be anguishing and a terrible fate for many.

Also on display are multi-disciplinary artist Huria Khan’s monochromatic untitled drawings and a 20-minute-long video work. The handheld-sized sketches are relatively small, but close observation reveals large bodies of water and scenes of the sky with birds that are layered upon each other.

Other video works in the exhibition are created by Anusha Khalid and Maria Jamali.

Kiran Saleem’s shower installation titled ‘Intimate Shower’ reminds viewers of the perils of climate change, of water shortages and, according to the artist’s statement, the “experience of being in the shower without the physical sensation.”

The eye-catching, sleek and metallic shower component with sensors imitating the sound of water as a viewer is close by it inside the gallery engages with the thematic focus of the exhibition, but the originality of the work is slightly hampered using a ready-made shower .

Other artists in the show include Rabeeha Adnan who creates text over a lightbox (‘Your God Morphed’), Sara Mahmood’s gypsum composite (‘The Comfortable Rut’), Maryam Jameel’s highly ephemeral ice installation and Sadqain’s concrete and e-pump series.

The experience of being connected with my experiences and consciousness, and being brought out of my reflection, through the works on display, renders the exhibition as reflective and engaging with oneself.

‘If You Have Tears’ was curated by Quddus Mirza and exhibited at Canvas Gallery in Karachi between June 15, 2021 to June 24, 2021

Published in Dawn, EOS, July 4th, 2021