KARACHI: How does one describe serenity? One of the answers is: the feeling of being untroubled. How does one define sensibility? Again, there could be a few responses, one of which is: sensitivity to understand complicated emotions. Now put them together. How to put them together, though? Well, the title of a three-person show, which concludes at the Canvas Art Gallery on Thursday, is Sensibility/Serenity. The slant in the name of the exhibition suggests that it may be an either-or situation. It is not. Here, sensibility and serenity are used as mutually reinforcing elements.

There’s a reason for underlining this. The three participating artists — Fawad Jafri, Karim Ahmed Khan and Yaseen Khan — have chosen pretty different subjects to express themselves creatively. And yet, there’s a convergence of ideas which can be understood by trying to get the spirit of the three individuals with which they have made their artworks.

Fawad employs geometric shapes (‘Four sides of polygon black and white’). Now even if one has a modicum of interest in art, one would know that shapes represent certain concepts. Adding colour to them adds to the complexity, in terms of aesthetics, of those concepts.

Karim is perturbed by global warming (the ‘Branch’ series). It is an issue that is affecting the entire world, not just that part of the globe from where the artist comes. So his work has the kind of universality to it which artists find irresistible when they set out to put across a message. Nice.

Yaseen opts for the personal side of things (the ‘Serenity in green’ series) to lend the exhibition an individualistic streak that combined with the rest of the artworks shines a holistic light on its theme. Intelligent.

The goal of the three strands of ideas remains to cultivate serenity without losing sight of sensibility. And the goal is achieved.

Published in Dawn, August 16th, 2024