LAHORE, Dec 14: An exhibition of collaborative mix media drawings by three graduates of the National College of Arts opened at Drawing Room Art Gallery near Liberty Roundabout on Wednesday.

The drawings are a coordinated effort by Dua Abbas, Wardha Shabbir and Ali Asad Naqvi as they had been sharing ideas while working collectively.

Dua Abbas told Dawn the idea behind the exercise was that how different individuals perceived the same artwork and what meaning and shape they gave to it in their individual capacity.

The artists said keeping this rich tradition of collaborative work in mind, they had attempted, in the series of drawings displayed, a creative collaboration of their own.

The pieces on display bear impressions of more than one set of hands, and more than one strain of thoughts. “Contributing individually to a single work, yet trying to maintain a kind of anonymity at the same time, to better facilitate the blending of three minds, we found the process refreshing,” Dua said.

Multiple hands working on a single piece of artistic creation is an old tradition and has been manifested in different forms in different regions of the world. The artists said if the 15th century Ottoman Empire had its Nakkashane, or studios where different artists worked on a single miniature painting, Medieval Europe had its weaving industries, where members of a weaver's household would work on different areas of the same tapestry. More recent times saw less rehearsed kinds of collaboration, such as the Surrealists' game of Exquisite Corpse, which involved a single sheet of paper passed from artist to artist. Each contributed an impromptu image, which led to a strange amalgam at the end.

The exhibition comprising some 13 or so artworks on display will conclude on Dec 26.