KARACHI: They say: home is where the heart is. Its implication is simple — if you feel physically and psychologically comfortable in a place that isn’t the four walls of your house, it still feels like your own habitat. What does it mean for an artist? The question is relevant because artists tend to be a restless lot, even when they come across as calm on the outside — they like to move around, explore and create.

A parallel exhibition that can be seen at Koel and Full Circle art galleries titled Welcome Back Home investigates this very subject on a larger scale.

It’s on a large scale for a couple of reasons. One, the show is on at two prominent cultural spaces of the city; two, it puts on display works of more than 50 creative men and women.

Now, to the topic which will be better understood from this part of the curatorial note by Shanal Kazi: “… All artists have been told work on what they think is their visual of coming back to their practice. Some of them may not have a long artistic trajectory, and yet may be lost in the confusion of who and how to be under the diktat of an authority.

Work of over 50 artists is on display at two art galleries till 28th

“This body allows all multidisciplinary artists to be indigenous and honest to their practice, the conscience and voice that fires inside each one [of them]. They can do so in any form and medium. The question posed to each artist is: What strikes and ignites this light in you? Where do they feel comfortable, at home, unmasked, in a surrounding where no one is watching, when they truly come back home to themselves? As if someone had given them a blank canvas or empty space, what would it say when it was truly something you owned as yours?”

At the end of the note, two variations of the drift of the show are also given: Well, come back home and welcome back home.

It’s an absorbing idea. Ideas develop in the head, some in the heart. They can only come to fruition, most of the time, in physical form. The exhibits on view provide the viewer with a visual abundance that drives the point ‘home’ in a powerful way, primarily through a wide variety of media employed to create the artworks — digital collage, oil on canvas, ink etching on archers paper, gouache on wasli etc.

Interestingly, each piece has a distinct interpretation of the ‘coming back’ aspect of the subject.

The exhibition concludes on June 28.

Published in Dawn, June 26th, 2022