Modernist Meher Afroz’s oeuvre has always centered on introspection and evaluation of self and society as read through the lens of universal human values. It was initially articulated through a purely abstract modality which eventually gravitated towards crude quasi figuration as a specific signature. Exhibiting after an absence of four years, Afroz’s current work, ‘Naqsh bur aab’, was shown at Chawkandi Art, Karachi, recently. Marked by a distinct vocabulary shift the artworks enunciate her intense desire to unravel, grasp and assimilate the realities of spiritual truth. The new imagery, a deliberate swing towards Islamic geometric pattern, incisive textual inserts and appropriate floral and vegetal symbols situates her grim and varied deliberations into a focused direction.

When a mature artist moves away from the freedom of gestural abstraction and suggestive illustration of figural forms to the rigour, constraint and consistency of the geometric grid and calligraphic script, it invites speculation. As an artist Afroz has constantly challenged herself and the viewer, technically through her hard-hitting chromatics, complex painterly surface applications evoking her printmaker spirit and conceptually through inventive but deeply coded philosophical imagery. Her preoccupation with man’s fall from grace, contradictions in social behaviour, erosion of spiritual moorings and a sensitive, vulnerable, inner self struggling for righteousness, often culminated in sombre vignettes portending dark journeys of the spirit.

The ‘Naqsh bur aab’ series weaves through the haze of social, religious and cultural chaos towards flashes of insight kindled by knowledge, belief and a sense of discovery.

Underscored by her prolonged study and understanding of the spiritual writings of classical poets like Saadi and Hafiz, the artworks are visual translations of her growing awareness of the virtuous path. Technically, Afroz journeys from stark harrowing imagery on abrasive surfaces to the unity and order of geometric pattern illumined with muted radiance. Couched in signs and symbols the works solicit extended engagement to reveal themselves.

The Urdu script in verse, phrase and single words, an integral feature of the new art, indicate the nature of her study of sacred texts. They also act as vital clues in comprehending the ideology the art purports. Words such as fanaa, rooh, baqaa and one-liners, Hum uski tasbeeh karte hain, and Behisht ke bagh jinke neechay nehrein behtee hain, are among the easier monikers; it is the complex poetic stanzas which challenge the reading skills and understanding levels of the spectator.

The considerable presence of geometric symmetry in the new compositions speaks of order, unity and calm as a contemplative format. Apparently confining, laborious and dismissed as merely decorative, geometric pattern in Islamic art suggests a remarkable amount of freedom; in its repetition and complexity, it offers the possibility of infinite growth and can accommodate the incorporation of other types of ornamentation as well. Indulging in minute, innumerable replications of the square, circle and triangle, Afroz attempts to transcend the material to locate the intangible. Other than the miniaturesque patterning the use of the Islamic Garden grid, divided into four quarters by water- channels, usually with a fountain or pool at the centre, is another significant pointer. She formally scripts ‘Gulistan hamara’ (rose garden) in a green and gold leaf ground to symbolise the ideal, but the ‘Char bagh’ geometric division recurring throughout the other artworks centres on a spiritual vision of the cosmos—these gardens on earth are mirrors of their Heavenly counterparts—and aim, like all sacred art to draw the visitor closer to God.

The lotus emerging as wondrous blossom from murky waters signifies the shedding of impurities from an individual consciousness striving for illumination. Employed by Afroz with chromatic subtlety the lotus in a golden hue specifies enlightenment, a white lotus represents mental purity, and the blue lotus signifies the wisdom of knowledge.

References to ‘water’ are another constant in the ‘Char bagh’ structure (In paradise, four rivers source at a central spring or mountain) and the lotus existence. The title of the exhibit ‘Naqsh bur aab’ (Image on water) infers flashes of insight—possible when a soul is cleansed and purified. Gilding, casting and mixed media insertions also feature throughout the series. A pair of footprints and a concentric rectangle in silver plated metal on acrylic and a profusion of silver and gold leaf triangular applications bring aesthetic diversity and tonal variation to an otherwise limited colour palette of silver greys, white and gold. Sourcing colours specific to illuminated Quranic folio’s Afroz also resorts to subtle use of emerald, cobalt and vermillion.

Among the obvious artworks, the ‘Gulistan hamara’ graphite-on-paper works the descriptions of fertile vegetation juxtaposed with guns, missiles, warheads and images of clerics are open indicators of militancy, suicide bombings and false notions of paradise. However, novel, intricate, mix media patterning and sheer effulgence in some artworks is visually captivating and can distract the viewer from the inherent message, but the intention of the artist is to allow patterns to guide the mind from the mundane world of appearances to its underlying reality.

This new vocabulary also gains deeper context if we differentiate between the ‘abstract’ nature of Islamic and western art.

“The process of so-called ‘abstraction’ in Islamic art is not at all a purely human and rationalistic process, but the fruit of intellection in its original sense, or vision of the spiritual world, and an ennobling of matter by recourse to the principles which descend from the higher levels of cosmic and ultimately Metacosmic Reality,” writes Seyyed Hossein Nasrin in Titus Burckhard’s volume, Art of Islam, Language and Meaning.

This is further elucidated by eminent scholar Rashid Araeen in Third text Asia:

“The artistic form of geometry not only represents the ability of the mind to deal with complex problems of an abstract nature, but its rationality demands that we look at things and understand them through the rationality of science, not only what is produced by others but what we can ourselves contribute to knowledge in our own way. The symmetry of Islamic art offers, in my understanding, an allegory for human equality (musaawaat); something that humanity now desperately needs.”