ISLAMABAD: Three artists put on a group exhibition at My Art World, all of them displaying portrayals of various facial expressions.

The exhibition highlights the strengths in portraiture and focuses on facial familiarity and how each artist perceives distinct facial features.

One of the artists, Zoya Manan has included paintings from her latest series where she has showcased paintings on wood and has used her signature style of focusing on faces and figures in enclosed, almost claustrophobic spaces.

Another artist, Amama Malik’s larger than life oil-on-canvas paintings have been inspired by the Renaissance and Boroque art. She has portrayed her muse’s narrative via light, shadows, tone variation and drapery.

The third artist, Sana Saeed has explored various forms of layering and most of her oil-on-canvas paintings are layered with a translucent sheet with an ink detailing on it. Each painting has a different mood and concept that is portrayed via expressions.

All the pieces in the show reveal multiple narratives that visitors can relate to and connect with.

Zoya Manan graduated from the National College of Arts (NCA) in 2014, majored in painting and has participated in various group shows.

She said art is a language spoken by people all around the world and says art is what kept her balanced and positive, helped her channel her emotions and feelings and how she deals with cerebral palsy.

“When I paint, I feel like I have control over my imagination and reality, that I am not in real life. My earlier works depicted rigidity, confinement and physical and mental detachment. My recent paintings show movement, struggle and ambiguity,” she said, adding that she plans to open her own gallery, which will promote works by challenged artists.

Sana Saeed is a Lahore-based artist and is working on her thesis on painting at the NCA. Ms Saeed said she had discovered her fascination with portraits and the human anatomy at a young age and would sketch and paint portraits of her family.

“I have been recently experimenting with adding layers of transparency on my traditional paintings. My recent works have a lot of imagery with hands and portraits because hand gestures and facial expressions have always interested me. When I paint, I usually have two parallel thoughts in my head which I have tried to capture on a single surface. The first layer I use is always opaque and the second transparent with more linear imagery,” she said.

Hand gestures and facial expressions can express things words cannot, she said.

Amama Malik is also an NCA graduate and has majored in painting. She says she is inspired by Renaissance and Baroque art. Her style is more traditional and stands out in a sea of more contemporary style of works.

Taking inspiration from old masters, Ms Malik has imagined and created scenes for her muses in her paintings, keeping in mind their personalities and how she wants them to be seen.

“Each portrait is painted in a scene with the help of lighting, drapery, and a mood is set which complements the model and gives an insight into who they really are,” she explained.

The show will run till September 25.

Published in Dawn, September 18th, 2016