KARACHI: Can violence have its own aesthetic value? The question sounds absurd. Aesthetics is to do with beauty, and one of the functions of all creative pursuits is to look for beauty, both in creating art as well as in the finished product. Violence is about inflicting harm on people, sometimes lethal. How can that be categorised as aesthetic?

Artist Aroosa Rana has tried to find the answer to this difficult query in a remarkable exhibition of her artworks titled The Golden Ratio — Math of Beauty at the Canvas Art Gallery.

To contextualise the show, it is essential to mention two things. First, the golden ratio. It’s a mathematical term which ‘occurs when the ratio of two quantities is the same as the ratio of their sum to the larger quantity’.

Second, which is more important, is Rana’s statement: “I overlay the golden ratio onto images of Gaza, commenting on how a symbol of classical harmony is used to frame devastation. The spiral, associated with divine proportion and visual perfection, becomes a form of camouflage. By imposing order onto ruins, the work questions how beauty can aestheticise violence. The composition guides the eye, softens rupture, and risks turning suffering into something consumable.”

These are feelingly penned strong words. What has happened in/to Gaza in the last three years is known to all and sundry. Unimaginable suffering, inconceivable pain. The artist, belonging to the sensitive segment of society, can’t remain detached from the goings-on.

So she tries to analyse it all, in order to get a sense of the order in disorder, by putting destruction into a mathematical perspective — because the subject deals with equating things.

In the process, Rana comes up with poignant exhibits that enable the viewer to realise the horrors that take place in a conflict zone, as a result of which — among many things that get destroyed — innocence and beauty become the foremost victims. This is particularly evident in pieces such as ‘The golden triangle’ and ‘The golden divide’ (UV print on canvas).

The show will conclude on April 2.

Published in Dawn, March 29th, 2026