KARACHI: The joys of drawing, the art of drawing that is, are limitless. In this age of technological advancement, art too has taken giant leaps forward. Still, it seems that drawing is something that will always remain the cornerstone of fine art as well as all the wonders of animation that the world sees, and is going to see in the time to come.

This observation was endorsed when one visited the Canvas Art Gallery on Tuesday where an exhibition of artworks made by Tazeen Qayyum titled Descent began.

Tazeen’s creative flow makes startling use of drawing skills and spreads it on to other media, making it pleasantly difficult for the viewer to identify what genre she favours most. The reference is to her sculptures and video installations. At the heart of it all, though, is her use of lines, their movement, their stationary positions and the shapes that they create. Even when she employs material such as Lucite, one can see that what dominates is the fluidity that has come to define her art.

Let’s come to the subject matter now. It would not be wrong to judge the content of the exhibition from its title. But there’s more to it. There are certain issues that the artist appears to feel strongly about. One of them is ishq or love (though on the artworks’ list it translates as passion). And ishq leads to other aspects of existence. What are they? They are highlighted effectively in her exhibits ‘Ashk-Ishq’ and ‘Aadat’ (archival ink on acid-free paper). The pieces have concentric circles that depict the grey cyclical movement of every emotion — wide-ranging emotions. Things change course when Tazeen touches upon ‘Ilzaam’ and ‘Laazim’ where the darkness (and denseness) of issues come to the fore. Denseness, in life, is unavoidable.

Here one must mention the extraordinary skillfulness of the artist, which, by the way, can be viewed in a video installation named ‘Amal’. Skill, hard work, sensitivity and intensity come together to form a noteworthy show.

The exhibition concludes on March 1.

Published in Dawn, February 21st, 2018