KARACHI: In one of his novels, the Franco-Czech novelist Milan Kundera (who passed away on July 11) wrote a line that has a simple auditory value but cerebrally it’s a complex idea: “On the surface, an intelligible lie; underneath, the unintelligible truth.” He puts falsehood in the exterior category, which means it’s to do with the façade, whereas truthfulness is concealed. There wouldn’t be any artist or writer worth their salt who would not like to unearth the hidden truth. What that truth may entail, is a different story altogether.

This is the subject of a group exhibition titled Beyond the Surface that is under way at the Koel Art Gallery.

The five participating artists in the show have established and revered credentials. They are: Abdul Jabbar Khan, Akram Dost Baloch, Kamran Maqsood, Roha Ahmed and Sabir Ali Talpur. They — as they should, given their experience and penchant for art — have their distinct styles and ways of expressing themselves. This distinction allows the exhibition to be a cornucopia of marvellous artworks, each moving in its own direction, but converging on a point where the gist of the show is easy to discover.

The delightful variety of techniques [charcoal on canvas, linocut, stoneware, mixed media on paper etc] gives a great degree of depth to the exhibits which, in turn, suggests that it enables the five creative individuals to literary go beyond the obvious.

In that connection, mentioning one piece or sequence of each artist might do justice to their output: ‘The Operator’ by Khan, the ‘Heartscape’ series by Baloch, the ‘Self Cultivation’ series by Ahmed, ‘Wave’ by Maqsood and the untitled series by Talpur are works that investigate and excite in equal measure. The former (investigation) tries to provide answers to art lovers to the question about how to see the unseen; and the latter (excitement) whets their appetite for aesthetic beauty.

The exhibition concludes on July 29.

Published in Dawn, July 27th, 2023