ISLAMABAD, Feb. 22: The first solo exhibition of young sculptor-cum-painter, Abdul Jabbar Gul, opened here at Nomad Gallery on Tuesday. As many as 30 wooden sculptures, 20 paintings , some in oil on canvas and a few on colour wash, have been put on display.

Jabbar describes his sculptures as 'ordinary souls', depicting people devoid of the knowledge of power, self-expression, wearing a hard and expressionless face and staring in the void.

Some of his art pieces have serene quality such as the sculpture named 'The Mother' that shows the brightly black varnished object with folded hands supplicating heaven in prayer about the safety and well-being of children.

Gul's paintings could be called an extension of his sculptures for they also portray his studies of men in relation to environments, which mould their personalities. More likely, these painted characters show man's relations with the outer world.

A large number of paintings done in oil has been titled 'Trapped'. A beholder might see the figure was wearing a skull cap, which covered up manacles fashioned by the thought of the wearer, but the specific was that the cap covered the religious element, which helped the man attain purity of character in harmony with the elements which surround him.

Man should not only be judged by his noble qualities and his thoughts could lead an insensitive individual stray depending on his reaction to his surrounding. This story is told through a panel of four paintings, delineated by the person painted in outer gray with attraction or devilishness that occupy his mind at the moment.

One picture shows the man peering at a flower or the colourful butterfly and son. The picture ends with a lizard sitting on a man's head: the lizard being the devilish nature has overpowered his senses at the moment.

By the way Jabbar Gul shows a preference for painting and sculpting wooden slates and two fascinating studies, one of a man and the next of a woman, affixed together in the exhibition had a wooden slate hanging on their breasts.

The slates have red alphabet like characters written on them, perhaps the individual snuffed out by the disoriented society. The writing on the slates are those laws which have never been implemented by the society and hence they are obscure and in red-denote danger for the lost individual.

No wonder some art critics have described his work as 'sculpted message of religious unity.' Abdul Jabbar comes from Mirpur Khas of rural Sindh and studied at the National College of Arts in Lahore. The artist has now settled down at Karachi where he teaches sculpture at the Indus Gallery.

He also had a stint at Johannesberg, South Africa, where he observed carved wooden figures that have become a tradition on the African continent. But when he showed his sculptures to Johannesberg art circles they were much acclaimed for his innovative elements.

"My background crowds into consciousness all the time and has become a part of me though I cannot put this label on my artwork, 'Jabbar Gul said. The exhibition would continue till March 6.