ISLAMABAD, Sept 30: It is after almost a decade that Naeem Pasha has decided to exhibit some of the works he had been engaged with over the period of time and he had decided to do so at 'The Art Gallery' of Mubeena Zubairi.

The exhibition will open on Friday (October 1) with a formal opening at 5:30pm. Mr Pasha had been exhibiting his works over all these years, putting a couple of entries here and a few there at various group shows held in town and other places in the country.

But, it would be for the first time over a period of more than nine years that he would be having an exhibition area all to himself. He seemed very selective for the exhibition and was personally engaged with the final touches in the preparations for the opening tomorrow.

"Yes, it is a long time since I had a solo show. Not that I have not been painting over this period. I had been putting up my works here and there in some group shows but never thought of having a solo show. But, I had been painting all along this period," Mr Pasha said.

"Painting is something like poetry or any other creative activity. Sometimes you conceive ideas which continue to develop over the time and the thought process may continue for years to fully mature and take a shape.

And, at times you conceive an idea in a flash of a moment and may be able to transform it into the desired shape within a few minutes or hours. Both are equally satisfying and fulfilling," Mr Pasha said.

For a viewer, he said, a painting may appear entirely different from what had been in the artists' mind when he painted. "But I believe if a person lives with a painting, or any painting for that matter, long enough, it would start revealing itself upon the viewer and the time comes when a viewer manages to see through the lines and colours as to what exactly the painter has tried to draw," Mr Pasha said.

He pointed at a certain painting up for the show which he said took almost three years to complete. "It was very intriguing. I spent a lot of time with this painting. I visited it too frequently and every time I visited the canvas, I added something to it.

And eventually this piece has materialized like this," Mr Pasha said. He also experimented on the canvas and the technique in which he has treated the 'canvas on canvas' gives a three dimensional touch to a two-dimensional relief painting.

Mr Pasha, who himself is the pioneer of setting up private art gallery in the federal capital and still owns the city's oldest art gallery 'Rohtas', is widely acknowledged as an architect and art promoter.

He has been encouraging the young graduates from the National College of the Arts (NCA) by arranging special shows for them in Islamabad, providing them a platform to start into their professional lives.

About his own work, he said: "Process of painting is like describing the moment in which a poem descended or the thematic compulsions of that poem. Somehow this indulgence makes the end less, but I understand the viewers desire to explore the mystique behind it all."