NCA students’ works depict monotony of life
ISLAMABAD: A group exhibition featuring the works of three National College of Arts (NCA) students depicting monotony of life and melancholy of ageing was inaugurated by Australian High Commissioner Margaret Adamson on Saturday.
Speaking at the Nomad Art Gallery, she praised the artists’ work and the gallery’s initiatives in mentoring and encouraging artistic genius.
“An artist interprets our world through his or her creativity and reflects our collective cultural heritage and the concerns of contemporary society at individual, community, regional and global levels,” Ms Adamson observed.
She also highlighted the difficulties the artists faced in historical perspective and at times battled censorship owing to their depiction of society being at odds with the preferences of the ruling regime, such as the artists that were stripped of their right to be entitled artists in Nazi Germany or those forced to conform to Soviet notions of art.
Some of the works by the exhibiting artists – Ujala Hayat, Sana Ibrahim and Shahaan Ahmed Shah – are powerfully done in the tradition of non-conformism celebrating imperfection. Shades of brown are the dominant colour theme in Mr Shah’s work.
The Quetta native has subtly depicted nature through textile art, incorporating organic materials such as natural colours, cotton, silk, jute coffee along with animal hair and skin.
Inspired by Japanese artist Wabi Sabi’s concept, the artist has very subtly depicted the melancholy of ageing. About the elements in his work, he said, “these are found in nature and undergo the process of ageing over a long period of time.
“Eventually these natural elements translate into a melancholy state of decay. Appreciation of the ageing textures and patterns of nature reminds us of transience,” he remarked.
Sana Ibrahim’s piece Steamer, made up of fish wire and powered by electricity, depicts the monotony of the mechanical life and the human body in motion.