Written by: Khadijah Rehman
Posted on: May 28, 2018 | 
| 中文
(L) R. M. Naeem's 'Sacred', (R) Mudassar Manzoor's 'Close Both Eyes to See the I'
The act of creation is imbued with holiness. To create a visual from scratch, where previously there was a blank surface, is both an ordeal and a gift, thus making the artist a vessel of transcendence, assimilating and shaping words and pictures out of thin air. ‘The Sacred?’ a group show curated by Irfan Gul Dahri, at the O Art Space in Lahore, honoured the sanctity of being an artist.
Eminent artist Salman Toor’s Humiliated Ancestor #1 is an array of strokes and scribbles that draws you in and leaves you reeling. Hastily scrawled words and lines come together to form a face, displaced bloodshot eyes, crooked teeth, and what appears to be tar or mud sullying one cheek. On closer inspection, the Urdu script in the background turns out to be Pakistan’s national anthem. The patchwork character can be said to be a plethora of displaced and oddball ancestors, caught between ideas of belonging and desolation, cultural identity and otherness.
The artist R. M. Naeem has created a large monochrome painting that depicts a scene of worship. A woman draped in a loose garment stands with her head bowed before an isolated tree. The sky, horizon and ground are all defined as sharp, flat forms. The texture of the ground beneath the woman is reminiscent of television static. Above her head are seven small circles in different hues of blue, bringing to mind symbols which portray the state of ‘loading’ in technological devices. The artist is captivated by the effects of symbols on the modern man, as he trudges through life half awake, responding to the external and the subliminal in a dreamlike state.
Ali Kazim’s Fallen Objects consists of three ceramic pieces enclosed in a vitrine. What looks like a dark, polished boulder from afar, reveals itself to be a delicate sculpture with a myriad of veins and arteries running across it. The pockmarked boulder appears to be an organic form, with life thrumming through it: distinctly human and alive. Two smaller pebbles accompany it, and the artist’s eye for detail is apparent in how these also look like frail human hearts. Kazim holds sacred the tenuous and immortal history of the land that man is forever trying to reach out and touch.
Adeel uz Zafar’s Sacred Scriptures is a diptych of engraved vinyl. The engravings of fraying and unravelling fabric have painstakingly detailed threads. The first image is filled with a net, taut here and loose there, about to fall apart. The second image is the same soft mesh in three parts, folding and swaying against the dark background. The images seem to reflect on the threadlike frailty of faith.
Ghulam Muhammad’s Khaakstarr, an intricate collage of Urdu alphabets cut out from old books, resembles a landscape split apart horizontally by a wash of black Iranian ink. The sharp, thin alphabets have a life of their own and form a visual cacophony. Using words to make pictures showcases the capability of both artist and art, and the fact that the Urdu lettering is the same as Arabic, makes this work doubly emotive.
In sharp contrast to the rest of the works is Ayaz Jokhio’s Miniature Painting. The title is wonderfully astute: the painting is literally 1 inch by 1 inch. Framed in 24 karat gold, it is the soft, detailed rendering of the human skull in gouache on white vasli. It becomes hard to determine what is more precious - the artist’s exhaustive labour in painting the skull or the glinting gold frame that underscores the preciousness of the work. The gold is symbolic of the reverence we bestow upon objects by adorning them with precious materials.
Muhammad Zeeshan’s riveting In a Blink of an Eye is in two parts; the top image has a winged horse-like creature against a bright turquoise background, created through laser scoring, with the facial features of a woman. The image below is an upside down horse, made in graphite on sandpaper, so that it appears to have a flat silver silhouette. A miniature artist, Zeeshan plays with images and materials to explore miniature in inverse. The creatures represent Buraq, the winged horse that carried Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) to the heavens, and slowly took on a womanly face in the visual history of Islam.
Sana Arjumand’s Knowledge is a playful painting of an exquisite bird, holding a rose in its long beak. Draped in a loose green garment and set against a geometric gold pattern, the bird is indicative of a mystical or transcendental occurrence. The painting generates a feeling of optimism, while the finely painted eyes of the bird seem alive. A blue halo peeks from behind the bird, adding to the painting’s spiritual undertones.
Mudassar Manzoor’s Close Both Eyes to See the I is a large gouache on paper painting, with the barely visible figure of a man sitting in a meditative state, behind a black and red haze. The posture of deep reverie, along with the title of the work, makes apparent that the artist’s concern is the search for self. The work puts in perspective the all-consuming effort it takes to really see oneself from a distance.
Each artist has used his practice as a means to exalt the privilege and responsibility of being chosen by the indomitable urge to create. It seems to be that the show itself is a quest to understand the most sacred experience of all: that of being alive.
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