Written by: Maryam Muhammad
Posted on: July 03, 2015 | 
The exhibition includes 6 paintings by Ubaid Syed, all of which have been inspired by nature. These acrylic based paintings are unique in their own way. It is difficult to discern where the abstract features of the paintings end and where the landscape features begin. The palette is vibrant and appears to have been borrowed mainly from the colors of dusk.With their bold strokes and appealing ambiguity, the paintings are a must-have for anyone who is particularly fond of abstract, nature- inspired art.
Tayyaba Aziz’s paintings are composed of oil on canvas.They engage with the female form and various symbols and motifs. The most obvious among these is the clock motif. The subjects appear to be in the presence of clocks in almost all the paintings, which may be an allusion to the lack of self-determination in most women’s lives. Another recurring feature is the vacant expression in the eyes of the female subjects, almost making it seem like they are longing for something. The colors used are a little melancholic in comparison with the other paintings featured in the exhibition. However, Aziz’s mastery over the use of these colors makes up for the lack of vibrancy; she succeeds in giving a three dimensional quality to the subjects of her paintings.
Mashkoor Raza, a veteran of Pakistan’s art industry, is the highlight of this group exhibition. The bold choice of colors and accompanying palette knife technique is something only an experienced painter like Raza can pull off. The artist has chosen his favorite subjects for this particular exhibition as well: horses and women.The equestrian form may be interpreted as Raza’s allusion to the freedom. His painting featuring 7 horses with the sunset in the background stands out in the entire exhibition. Thinned oil paint in various shades of beige and brown has been cleverly used to produce the illusion of a forest.
The last artist, whose paintings form the bulk of the exhibition, is Samina Ali. Her paintings stand out in the entire exhibition, owing to the artist’s choice of mixed media. Ali has used newspapers, threads, water and acrylic colors, miniature paintings taken from a textbook with a layering technique to create her masterpieces. Memory, loss and a longing for the past are all dominant themes in Samina’s paintings. The zenith of Samina’s works for this exhibition is ‘Without you’, a beautiful painting that combines postage stamps, textbook cuttings of a miniature painting and newspaper fragments, layered with acrylic paint and textured paper. The couplet written in Urdu at the bottom of the painting succeeds in transforming the piece from art to poetry.
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