KARACHI: Gullibility is largely to do with innocence. A lack of shrewdness can make one susceptible to betrayal and treachery. But when artists touch upon this subject, they often go beyond the obvious inference. A case in point is an exhibition of Muhammad Ashraf’s latest artworks titled Malleability that’s under way at the Koel Art Gallery. The artist has expanded the very meaning of the word in the title by turning it into a multilayered metaphor that one gets to confront, if not interpret, on a daily basis.

To elucidate, here’s what the artist’s statement suggests: “The current project is a thematic extension of the subjects that cultivate my creative practice: sublime and melancholy. I paint mundane objects and the happenings in everyday life, from the pleasure that natural beauty yields to an effrontery of socio-political systems. The subject of this project comprises flowers that turn Lahore, the city of gardens, mind-blowing at the time of bloom.”

What is Ashraf trying to drive at? Answer: by highlighting something as delicate and beautiful as flowers (a symbol of innocence, among other things), preceded by a reference to ‘mundane objects’, he is trying to juxtapose those contrary aspects of life that one comes across without considering them as opposing forces. Carefully, though, he has ensured that the viewer does not think it as a clash of binaries. There are no binaries but multiplicity of ideas from which the artist is trying to get a sense of his existence as well as the existence of those living or nonliving things that make up his world.

As a result, what the viewer gets to see is a lovely, somewhat pensive depiction of life in colours. The colours are not mellow or light.

They are bright and have character of their own. And through these characters art aficionados can attempt to understand the story that Ashraf is telling them.

The exhibition concludes on Aug 25.

Published in Dawn, August 25th, 2021