A group show titled Palat Ke Dekhtay Hain can be seen at the Chawkandi Art Gallery in Karachi. The four participating artists try to create a discourse on their past experiences and journeys — some of them are personal while others are about the city they were raised in —and the role these journeys played to shape their current art practices.

Haider Ali Naqvi was born and raised in Karachi with a degree in Fine Arts from the National College of Arts (NCA). His current body of work comprises an archival documentation of his ancestral homes located in India. A piece by Naqvi titled ‘Al-Najaf’ contains various little crumpled images of a house while a drawing of the house, which is shown as if it is in the process of coming into visibility, is also a part of the entire documentation. A broken name plate is also depicted in this artwork, with ‘Al-Najaf’ written in Urdu. The name plate, along with the distorted images of the house, could symbolise the artist’s struggle to reconnect himself with his roots, while the layering of the drawings could be understood as the artist’s process to self-discovery.

Jovita Alvares is another artist hailing from Karachi, who graduated with an overall distinction from the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture (IVSAA) with numerous shows to her credit. Alvares documents the bougainvillea plant which plays a distinctive role in Karachi’s landscape. According to the artist, this particular plant is not only used as a source of beautification but also unconsciously, becomes a shield for protection. In her work titled ‘The Other Day 1’, an enormous bunch of bougainvillea is shown to be keeping the depicted building under its shadow, a possible reflection on the self-absorbing nature of people today and the particular plant probably acting as a boundary.

A group exhibition enables the artists to travel back in time in order to discover parts of their identities

The third artist is Razin Rubin who also graduated from IVS and has been a part of various national and international shows. Rubin documents images of her family and friends eating together, which is a universal ritual that binds people together. Since the artist has no images of herself dining with her late parents, she aims to fill this gap by recreating those memories. Through the process of redrawing and erasing certain areas of her visuals, it is as if the artist has aimed to rewrite her past life through her work.

Ayesha Naveed is the fourth artist who was born and raised in Karachi. Having graduated from IVS, Naveed has participated in various shows across Pakistan and in Nepal. Her hyper-realistic visuals study the various ways a household sofa is used. By disregarding their identities, the artist observes the daily activities of people utilising the sofa’s space. It is interesting to see how the artist has captured these activities by simply adding certain gestures and details to the clothes worn by her subjects, who develop their own distinctive personality through these details.

“Palat Ke Dekhtay Hain” is being displayed at the Chawakandi Art Gallery in Karachi from April 23 to May 14, 2019

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 12th, 2019