KARACHI: In the third section of T S Eliot’s masterpiece, The Wasteland, arguably the greatest poem penned in the 20th century, the poet says: “The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers/ Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends/Or other testimony of summer nights.” It signifies the activity that usually takes place along the River Thames in summertime. Basically, the poem talks about the spiritual hollowness of (western) people by highlighting their perfunctory, mundane and seemingly fun routines.

An exhibition of Masooma Syed’s artworks that concluded on Jan 30 at the Canvas Art Gallery is interestingly titled An Ode to Empty Bottles. The emphasis on the adjective ‘empty’ is key. Bottles carry drinks or other liquids. Sometimes, in a romantic way, they can be used to send messages.

How does Syed feel about it, though? The artist’s statement reads: “[The exhibition] delves into the pervasive internal emptiness of the human condition. I perceive this as reflecting life’s chaotic exhibitory nature. This provokes me to seek — the incomprehensible, the transient and the elusive which I try to execute theatrically… By incorporating found objects (old, damaged, discarded glassware and empty bottles) I transform these into symbolic chandeliers, bridging notions of grandeur and decay.”

This is an intriguing idea: the notions of grandeur and decay. Apparently, this is not a binary that artists or writers normally deal with. The former is to do with style and the latter with the decline in the physical shape of an object or a living being. And that’s where Syed’s work catches the eye. She has been able to give art lovers a spectacle which dazzles and at the same time enables them to mull over what she’s trying to drive at.

The exhibit ‘Noble Potions’ goes along in a striking way with the concept of the exhibitory nature that the artist mentions and pieces such as ‘Seamless’ and ‘Forever Beautiful’ (oil on canvas) through ‘loose’ strokes speak of the vastness within the ‘internal emptiness’ of human beings.

Published in Dawn, February 2nd, 2025