Gallery 6 closed out the year with a masterfully curated exhibition entitled ‘Heaven’. The 14-artist line-up was brought together by Sana Arjumand and featured a debut showing from Australian-Pakistani artist Aafia Ali Shah, as well as offerings from Abu Hanzla, Amra Khan, Asif Shareef, Brishna Amin Khan, Farrukh Shahab, Hadia Moiz, Mizna Zulfiqar, Muhammad Atif Khan, Rahman Zada, Ramsha Haider, Sayed Yaqoot Jan, Umna Laraib and Yaseen Khan.

Arjumand, in her third curatorial excursion, has shown a talent for creating an intensely unified experience, bringing together disparate styles and media into a show that hums with the same energy.

Each artist makes a strong connection between the otherworldly and the earthly, particularly the natural world, which serves as a connection point from where we can contemplate the divine.

There are symbols repeated by many of the artists, such as pomegranates, birds and trees that we can easily link to the idea of heaven through cultural and religious motifs, while other artists have chosen to explore the use of light and abstraction in their exposition of the theme.

Disparate artworks at a recent exhibition in Islamabad, ranging from miniatures to sculptures, were united by their meditative tones

Mizna Zulfiqar’s The Tree is a beautiful tribute to the art of the miniature that captures the quiet contemplation of other realms: a lone pomegranate tree, engulfed in tranquil blue. In contrast, Yaqoot Jan’s Echoes of Hope — I portrays the pomegranate in a rousing oil on canvas rendition, reminding us of the struggle this world demands of us, in order to win the blessed fruit in the life to come.

Debut artist Aafia Ali Shah brings us three oil on paper paintings, exploring the link between this world and the next through her use of light. The intense russets seem to burn through the image in Impression — Air reminds us that the thin veneer of this world must be peeled away to expose the brilliance of light beneath what we perceive. Or perhaps she’s reminding us of the light that exists within our own selves.

Similarly, Amin Khan explores the heavenly connection with light. Traversing the many hues of white in a snowy landscape, we see blushing clouds and snow-capped trees tinged with peachy light, all forming the backdrop to the flight of two fantastical blue birds in Nature’s First Green is Gold.

Abstract sculptural pieces by Asif Shareef bring a three-dimensional perspective to the theme, with an exploration of the masculine and feminine through geometry, harmony and balance. Ramsha Haider’s Heavenly Chaos series, on the other hand, showcases the fluidity and apparent randomness we can observe in nature, which belies the natural law and harmony underpinning all creation — her striking blue palette reminiscent of the original waters from which all life spawned — order from chaos.

Overall, the experience of ‘Heaven’ is a meditative one. Sitting amidst the artworks on display it is evident that each artist has truly tapped into an individual experience of a universal leitmotif. The same theme, expressed through the particular lens of each individual artist, allows the viewer to feel a powerful connection to the body of work as a whole.

‘Heaven’ was on display at Gallery 6 in Islamabad from December 20-25, 2024

The writer is an Australian based in Pakistan. She is an avid enthusiast of contemporary Pakistani art and culture

Published in Dawn, EOS, January 26th, 2025