KARACHI: For some thinkers who use music as a metaphor for life, the difference or distance between two notes, let’s say between A and B (sa and re) is the space where life’s real meaning lies — the gap between two sounds, which may not necessarily be a note of silence. An exhibition of the works of the fine art class (2018) of the Indus Valley School titled Spacebar opened at the Koel Art Gallery on Tuesday.
In a somewhat similar fashion where music speaks to man with all its intricacies, the young artists have used the symbol of the spacebar key [of a computer set] to denote the interstice of a thought. It is a potent symbol because it helps understand the ostensibly meaningless link to words that combine to create a certain meaning in a given context.
It will be unfair to the artists if not all of them are mentioned here, because they are more than 20 in number and the multidisciplinary artworks that are on display demand a detailed analyses of their effort — they deserve it.
What can be done, though, is to marvel at the wide variety of techniques and subjects that they have chosen to express themselves. From the traditional oil on canvas and acrylic on canvas to the warm medium of terracotta clay to graphite and archival ink on canvas, the young men and women have employed, to the hilt, media that commensurate with their content effectively. For example, the sea with its mellow glory which needs to be protected is depicted with the help of the shininess of acrylics. This may sound oxymoronic, but this is where the magic of the show lies: in its strange coming together of what the viewer might take as ‘dissimilar ideas and media’.
The participating artists are: Abeer Arshad, Ana Ali Kazmi, Ansha Memon, Aqsa Khan Nasar, Asim Muhammad Ameen, Ayesha M. Ali, Babar Feroz, Hassaan Aslam, Haya Esbhani, Jaweria Shoaib, Kiran Saleem, Mahnoor Qazi, Muzna Ghufran, Osama Rehman, Sadia Safdar, Sahl Motiwala, Saleha Moeen, Samra Mekhri, Schanza Khan, Kainat Ayub, Sundus Ihsan, Tooba Shahbaz, Yusra Taqi and Zoya Arshad.
The show concludes on June 20.
Published in Dawn, June 12th, 2019
Peerzada Salman is the Special Correspondent for Arts & Culture for Dawn in Karachi, having been associated with the newspaper since 2003. He writes weekly columns on Karachi’s history and Pakistani showbiz alongside his coverage of cultural events.
