LAHORE, June 4: A group show of miniature paintings titled ‘Conversation in Miniature Paintings’ featuring works of 11 artists opened at the Ejaz Art Gallery on MM Alam Road on Tuesday.

The artists who have put on display their works are Ramzan Ali Jaffri, Usman Alvi, Ejaz Saeed, Kausar Iqbal, Muhammad Shahid, Zoha Saleem, Amna Manzoor, Areej Rana, Yasir Waqas, Syed Shah Abdullah Alame and Muhammad Qasim. The exhibition will continue till June 11.

A number of art enthusiasts and other people visited the exhibition on the opening day.

Yasir Waqas’ work is about compromises and conflicts within a personality, between idea innate and idea implanted, damage to the personality and the idea itself and it explains two stories in one like two selves living in one, two ideas poles apart existing in one mind, two opposite thoughts forcing and pushing one another.

Ramzan Ali Jaffri’s works say any terrorist act that takes place captures an image in artist’s conscience as well as turns a part of his subconscious state of mind; an innocent, a child, father targeted without any reason; a sectarian discrimination that has been going on in artist’s mother land captures his eye, bring pain onto his feelings for his nation and appears in his canvas through different techniques on articulating how community has suffered and what the artist feels at that very moment.

Amna Manzoor’s work explores human identities and their training, conditioning and her personal experiences in this regard. It depicts how a society influences us and our personalities.

Zoha Saleem says her work, “This series of ‘Kaghazi Baatein’ depicts current political issues of Pakistan, where all public addresses and promises made by political leaders have no result and seem to be artificial to me. In my paintings I’ve used newspapers with current issues and artificial paper-made flowers painted to show that all promises made are artificial just like these unreal flowers.”

Muhammad Shahid says about his work it is based on the fact that one must change according to the situation before the foreign influences enslave them and their freedom.

Areej Rana’s work laments the woman who may have apparently through feminist movements gained a certain standing in society but is still bound by the shackles of male dominance and societal pressures.

Usman Alvi says about his works, “My work shows the physical connection between objects and me because as I cannot speak or hear, I enjoy the sensory values of movements around me. Fighting roosters, peacocks, ducks, toads and dogs on my canvas portray a rhythmic movement as well as noise which I cannot hear but feel; that enhance my subject matter. I love seeing beautiful horizons and like to feel the beauty inside me.”

Syed Shah Abdullah Alamee says: “My work is about the journey of self exploration. It questions the importance of a man’s existence.”

Ejaz Saeed says: “My works are a continuation of my previous series but this particular work explains further about a person’s willingness to identify one’s true self and obstructions in doing so.”

Muhammad Qasim’s art work is very much influenced by cinema screen: it helps him to explore different dimensions of abstract miniature technique.

Kausar Iqbal works describe communication through images. To the artist those images or the faces are the crowd which fills the circle of a man’s life. Her works capture different moods and faces of man’s life at different times from being happy to sad.