Positive, negative and things in between
KARACHI: In art, are craft and content mutually exclusive or mutually reinforcing? Or are they interdependent? This is a difficult question to answer. It becomes all the more difficult when artists such as Ghulam Mohammad, an exhibition of whose artworks opened at the Canvas Art Gallery on Tuesday, dazzle the viewer with their tremendous skill and the ability to approach subject matter through their technical prowess.
Ghulam Mohammad, winner of the prestigious Jameel Art Prize, makes the phrase ‘hard work’ sound quotidian, a piece of cake, if you like. The paper cutouts that he uses as his medium seem like a regular exercise for him, but in reality it requires a great deal of skillfulness, patience and passion to achieve the feat that he aims for. Here’s why: he cuts out Urdu letters from different sources and re-collects them to diminish the textual-visual binary in order to come up with something entirely new. And the result is astounding, as in the case of the very first untitled exhibit (paper cutouts in glass bottle) on display.