Internationally acclaimed artists Farida Batool and Masooma Syed recently showcased their latest exhibition titled ‘Wayfarers of the Last Night’ at the Canvas Gallery in Karachi. In the exhibition, the artists traced their individual experiences and art trajectories as they questioned the relationship between art and life, including their personal relationship with art and its influence on them.

‘Wayfarers of the Last Night’ [Akhir-e-shab ke Hamsafar] is a title the artists borrowed from Qurratulain Hyder’s novel published in 1979. According to the artists, “The process of making an image is a very isolating yet intimate experience, entailing a challenging dichotomy of pain, pleasure, struggles, raptures, making, unmaking, creation and erasures. While tracing our individual experiences, art trajectory and life, we discussed certain core and common concerns and questions like: how are art and life intertwined?”

A recent two-artist exhibition at the Canvas Gallery explored the complicated connection between life and art

While Batool’s work focused on patterns and the abstract, Syed’s pieces incorporated mixed media and objects within the paintings. For Batool, patterns and lines took centre stage in The Red Erasure I (print on half-baked ceramic tile) and evolved from a diagonal design into a circular one in The Red Erasure IV. This cyclical pattern seemed to depict the rhythm and movements of life, alluding to the notion that life eventually comes full circle for us all.

In stark contrast to this work, Undulated Hues I (black and white print on glass) showed a dry, cracked, barren earth in one half of the artwork, juxtaposed by the reflection of barbed wire and grills in the water next to the parched earth. This constant juxtaposition of themes and ideas through art was something which the artists were eager to explore. “How do we still long to make art to arrive at various possibilities?” Batool and Syed questioned in their artist’s statement. “Is it through the delight of exploring several media and the challenges of these limitations, layered with indefinite arguments on focus, emotional states and the struggle to express and connect with oneself and the other?”

Syed’s oil painting titled Surkh told a story of hope. There were two white angel wings attached to either side of the bright red painting and both could be rotated and moved, symbolising the possibility of flight. Her other installation, Sandro or Man with a Silk Heart, was another interesting piece. Syed had placed an anatomically accurate grey-coloured heart inside a black box illuminated by a light from above. Created out of pure silk, the threads out of which the heart was made aimed to depict the nerves, veins, flesh and texture of a real heart.

Batool and Syed’s artworks prompted much discussion and were open to interpretation, which is perhaps exactly what these two artists wanted. As they put it, “Though not intended for any resolution while discussing established exposition, various strategies of making art, preservation and archival-ness, it furthered our conversations around other provocations.”

‘Wayfarers of the Last Night’ was exhibited at the Canvas Gallery, Karachi from March 21-30, 2023

Published in Dawn, EOS, April 23rd, 2023