Artworks of Five Artists on display at Nomad

Published in Pakistan Observer (Feb. 18, 2011)

Sana Jamal

ISLAMABAD: A beautiful combination of paintings of five different artists at an exhibition titled ‘I See You’ opened at Nomad gallery on Thursday. The group exhibition conveys the message of soul-searching on the whole, however “each art work is distinctive in the sense that it tells a different story residing in the heart of the artist” informed Nageen Hyat, curator of the gallery while talking to Pakistan Observer.

If closely observed each artwork is certain to engross the visitors as it not only expresses the individual thoughts of the artist but also provides food for thought for the art lovers. The exhibition features the artworks of five talented artists Mizna Syed, Ahsan Masood, Amra Khan, Mohsin Shafi and Maria Khan which will continue 5th March.

The artists have used mix media to express their inner desire, wrath and judgment. Maria Khan has used floral patterns for their aesthetic beauty. Using black mount sheet and wall paper in her artworks ‘Screams blue murder’, ‘Apple of eye’ and ‘In black and white’ she has expressed her inner feelings and psychological state. “Flowers, since they bloom, fade and die, symbolic of our own mortality, the temporariness of our brief lives, my life” Maria said.

The artist, Ahsan Masood aims “to highlight the plight of sexuality detached from the cultural, religious and social context where it resides, and the implications of such detachment.” Human figures portrayed with black and yellow strokes symbolize the revolution and change, inside the artist. Layer upon layers of textures and surfaces and pigments, in his artwork ‘Hot forehead’, things in my head’ ‘Pretty boy’ captures the complex mindset of the artist.

Amra Khan’s work examines the critical bipolarity, differing ideas, temperaments and personalities. Through her artwork titled ‘The couch’ and ‘Poker face’ she strives to make her work scream and agitate. “I paint myself and witness naught what I would want to and it breaks me even more.. the conflict between mind and soul when, the battle ground is your body, who you are and who you desire to be” she expressed.

Mohsin Shafi’s work explores various issues of gender, ideology, sexuality, spirituality and the tendencies of violence in our society. His most interesting artworks are titled as ‘Before I moved to Coventry’, ‘the lost prince’ and ‘my heart skipped a beat II’ and ‘Frankenstein’. “Living in a society where few of us can be ourselves, we suffer abuse from politically correct liberals with guilt and conservative fundamentalists; it is a constant struggle to be ourselves without being labeled something that you are not” Mohsin explained.

The artist, Mizna Syed draws inspiration for her work directly from her life, which “at present is riddled with multi-tasking abrupt fluctuations between the different roles I play as a person and my struggle to successfully co-exist in multiple states of mind” expressed Mizna. Her body of work revolves around the concept of fragmentation of self into multiple individual compartments, the fluctuation between them and the quest for creating order from chaos. In ‘Scrambled’, ‘Fragments’ and ‘Glitch’ she has used self-portraiture as the medium to tell her story.