Written by: Jovita Alvares
Posted on: August 07, 2018 | 
| 中文
Anas Abro's 'Untitled'
Even today, the human body is considered a site of taboo. Basic animalistic function, along with the mere naturalness and nakedness of the human form, is yet to come under the realm of normalcy and instead must be mentioned behind closed doors and in guarded conversations. The beginning of August witnessed the opening of ‘Figuratively Speaking’, a group show, at the Full Circle Gallery, Karachi. Playing on this common phrase, the gallery exhibited five unique artists who looked past societal norms and produced enticing figurative pieces that spoke of personal and universal truths.
Indus Valley alum, Ayesha Naveed, dominated the display with her painted series, ‘Body Language.’ Varying in size, Naveed created multiple canvases of individual figures caught in the mere act of sitting. With their heads, quite literally, cut from display, the bodies sit as anonymous forms to be deciphered from clues in their clothing and posture. As the artist explains, body language is universal and can therefore be understood by many. One can experience the tension as the girl clasps onto the wrinkled bedsheet in one painting and the ease in another work, where the elderly man leans back on the sofa. Along with making the work relatable, the artist ensured the audience receive a visual elation, as the key traditional factors of colour contrast, composition and light/shadow had all been paid attention to.
Ammama Malik, a recent graduate from the National College of Arts, explored light and body in her magnificent paintings. Surrounded by dark backgrounds, her female forms turn away from the viewer while being exposed in all their naturalness. For each painting, the figure displays a relaxed demeanour though the placement allows for delicate and intriguing visual compositions. With no view of the face, the work is stripped of any identification, except gender, and therefore presents itself as a mere study of the human-form and its interaction with space and light. With a void of objects or physical background accompanying the figure, the artist creates a space for the form to be understood as more than just flesh. The work explores its texture, mechanism and quite simply its existence as a thing rather than a human. Though some may argue that these appear as traits of the objectification of the female form that art is far from alien to, and it is true that this does appear in Malik’s work too, but it is important to note that the artist’s ability to casually introduce the viewer to a naked woman begins a path to normalising prevalent stigmas.
Hassan Shah Gillani is another artist from the show who looked at the nude form. Using unique angular framing, the artist creates keyhole- views for each of the graphite figures. Unlike Malik’s figure, these forms exist within an air of sensuality as their gestures describe. By stripping away all colour, the focus is solely on the suppleness and beauty of the female form, brought out by the artist’s skill. There is also a sense of voyeurism, as the distinctive framing makes it seem like one is spying on the female through a small hole in the wall.
Taking on introspective approaches were artists Faten Suleman and Anas Abro. Abro uses the human form as a visual aid for understanding the human mind, and as a result produced work that bordered on abstraction. The mind is vast, and still considered a mystery, and similarly, Abro creates pieces that seemed grounded because of his technical application of contrast and shadow, but were actually distorted and perceived differently, much like the mind itself. Suleman looks at memory and how it not shapes our present, but also how recalling a memory can actually reshape it. In the end, the past and present merge, as each recall further distorts the thought, but this very thought forces us to move forward in the present. Her mixed media paintings become representations of such abstract stances; jumbled, incomplete and overlapping.
‘Figuratively speaking’ will remain on display from 3rd to 25th August, 2018.
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