KARACHI: While the world is moving ahead at breakneck speed with technological developments making the future of mankind look increasingly startling, the artist community is trying hard not to sever its relationship with tradition and history. Make no mistake, it’s a healthy omen.

The latest example is of an exhibition of renowned artist Ghulam Mohammad’s (GM) artworks titled Continuance (which in Urdu has been translated as tasalsul) that concludes on Thursday (today) at the Canvas Art Gallery.

The name of the show reminds this writer of the famous opening lines of a poem by Mohsin Bhopali:

Na chhedo khilti kaliyon, hanste phoolun ko
In urti titliyon, aawara bhnavron ko
Tasalsul toot jaey ga

[Don’t touch these blossoms or disturb the smiling flowers
Let the fluttering butterflies and stray black bees be
Otherwise, it’ll break the continuation…]

What is this continuation that the poet is talking of? Well, it is about the pristine quality of nature essential for man’s growth. GM is also trying to suggest the same but the route that he has taken to do so is different, and visually opulent.

He says, “Carving out words and recomposing them is a cathartic act, in which I try to break language down into its most basic constituents and attempt a reconstruction of language and identity, trying to arrive at something more than just itself. The rediscovery of language by freeing it from the page where it is composed in a particular fashion and then recomposing it, changing its meaning, its character as language is an act of plasticizing language to see what it has the potential to lead to. I would call it no less than a journey in itself.”

Notice how the artist puts emphasis on the prefix ‘re’ in the statement — (re)compose, (re)construct. It means to go back or do something again. That in turn implies a relationship with the days gone by.

Now language, apart from being a mode of communication, is an integral component of our traditional values. GM knows it very well. What he does so beautifully is to turn this means of verbal and textual communication into a delightful form of visual interaction.

To understand, nay feel, this concept time spent with his exhibits such as ‘Pesh Manzar’ and ‘Pas-i-Manzar’ (Iranian ink and paper collage on wasli) is essential. It’s thoughtful art.

Published in Dawn, December 22nd, 2022