ISLAMABAD: A group exhibition of 11 talented young artists titled ‘Obscure Dreams of Fear and Reality’ opened at the Satrang Gallery on Monday.

According to the director of the gallery, Asma Rashid Khan, the works on display highlight the intricate, delicate and historical nature of modern miniature art, which is the adaptation of ancient Persian and Mughal miniature paintings and which has been popularised by contemporary artists from Pakistan.

“The works are diverse in subject and vary stylistically as well. The intimate size of many of the works, the multiple layers of depiction and meaning, demand the undivided attention of the audience,” she said.

The show was inaugurated by the Austrian ambassador, Dr Brigitta Blaha, who said: “I can see how they have taken the age old technique of miniature painting and incorporated it into a modern theme. The works are clearly based on the experiences of the artists – often experiences of persecution. Some works are very personalised while others extend beyond borders.”

The curator of the show, well known art critic and writer Aasim Akhtar, said: “The intimate scale of a significant number of works in this exhibition, the delicacy of some of the procedures deployed constitute a form of resistance to the bombast and hyperbole of much contemporary art, even if none of the artists in question have taken a polemical stance about this.”

All the artists taking part in the week-long show are miniature painters and many of them are graduates of the National College of Arts.

The artists taking part in the show are Arsalan Farooqi, Syed Hussain, Shah Abdullah Alamee, Komal Shahid, Sana Zaidi, Attiya Shaukat, Hassan Sheikh, Sajid Khan, Mirza Zeeshan Baig, Rahim Baloch and Ramzan Jafari and not all of them were able to attend the exhibition.

Hassan Sheikh, who works in mix media, said his work is a dialogue between history and present times while another artist, Shah Abdullah Alamee said he has worked with sign language and has translated the poetry of Faiz Ahmed Faiz into sign language.

Sajid Khan said his work is based on his experiences of living in his village.

“In my village, I was not aware of materials like acrylic or oil paints. I only knew about pencils which is a compliant medium. Even after I learned to use other media, working with the pencil came naturally to me. I find it a nostalgic experience working with a lead pencil. Like my materials my ideas originate from my early life in my village Palai near Swat”.

His work depicts both childhood experiences and the carnage and waste that followed the war.

Syed Hussain, a Hazara ethnically, said, “I have always been the odd one out due to my physical features, accent and tone. While travelling across the country, I have encountered several questions, gazes, raised eyebrows and odd gestures just because I could not fall to the ‘definition’ of identities my countrymen are accustomed to. This firstly led me to anger, disassociation and then isolation. Ultimately I tried to understand what my ancestors have gone through decades and centuries ago. This search led me to my family’s old legal documents with stamps, dates, typed and hand written information, marks, signatures, thumb impressions and mutilated pictures”.

Attiya Shaukat divides her art practice into three groups. She explained: “The works in this show are more experimental and depict the incidents which happened with me. The element of pain has been transformed into a romantic pain”.

Rahim Baloch said: “I use colours, activities and wonders of nature to express human ideas of love, longing and desire intermixed with solitude, loneliness and nostalgia. My work revolves around being involved and lost in a trance; a state of mind where words are worth nothing anymore. The point where this condition rejuvenates one’s self. It merely separates one from all the painful factors without escaping from the reality”.

Sana Zaidi’s work reflects the said and unsaid, which she explains as “woh jo adhuri si baat baki hai” [that incomplete conversation that is still awaited].

Published in Dawn, December 05th, 2017