KARACHI: In art, shapes and forms play an important role in putting a message across through a painting or a piece of sculpture. But this is also true for the written word. Be it poetry or fiction, the shape that the arrangement of words imparts to a particular line or a phrase adds to its auditory value. After all, what are words but a series of sounds.

Keeping this in mind, the significance of fluidity in creative ideas, and therefore in the techniques that are used to convey those ideas, must be emphasised by practitioners and lovers of art. A four-person show titled Sayyal, which concludes at the Canvas Art Gallery on Thursday, highlights this facet of creativity in a convincing manner.

The names of the artists whose works are on display are: Noor Ali Chagani, Safdar Ali, Tahira Noreen and Umar Nawaz.

All the artists have given their statements, as is the practice these days, to facilitate the viewer’s understanding of what they have come up with for the show. They talk about ‘new struggles’ and the difference between ‘perception’ and ‘reality; and they touch upon the link between ‘light’ and ‘movement’ and the ‘reformation of material’. All of which is valid. However, if one replaces the word understanding with feeling, things will become more lucid.

Why does one say that? The answer lies in a line of Shah Abdul Latif quoted by one of the artists:

When you wish to truly see, first lose yourself. When the gaze becomes empty, truth reveals itself on itsown.

The exhibits that one gets to see at the gallery speak of this advice: lose yourself. Chagani, Ali, Noreen and Nawaz seem to have made the artworks with a fair degree of frenzy. That, in turn, lends a noticeable fluidity to their collective effort. Chagani, Noreen and Nawaz’s untitled works and Ali’s piece called ‘iPad Cover’ endorse this claim. They are truly able to see.

Published in Dawn, March 1st, 2026