Written by: Nayha Jehangir Khan
Posted on: March 12, 2019 | 
| 中文
Untitled by Aqeel Solangi
Gallery 6 is celebrating 11 years of showcasing established, emerging, aspiring and upcoming artists from across the country. The exhibition has 40 participating artists that need no introduction, and these pioneering modernists include Sadequain, Maqsood Ali, Ghulam Rasul, Tassaduq Sohail, Mehr Afroz, Hajra Mansoor, Mansoor Rahi, Mobina Zuberi and Shahla Rafi.
Established in March 2008 by Dr Arjumand Faisel, the Anniversary Exhibition of Gallery 6 marks his 90th curated show. The curatorial ambition of a young eighteen year old Arjumand started in January 1972, with Johnny’s Art Gallery located in Karachi. Over the decades, he has been an active support for artists while having acquired three postgraduate degrees from Pakistan and USA. Arjumand is heavily invested in the arts and is passionate about promoting Pakistani Artists across the world. The Gallery website has a state-of-the-art setup with detailed cataloguing, artist profiles, exhibition updates and an active two way networking platform between artists and art collectors, making it easier to create a worldwide accessible market place for Pakistani Artists.
The show is an expansive display of artistic practices and methodologies. A total of 62 paintings, sculpture and print can be seen in oils, watercolours, silver gilding, acrylics, ink, dry mediums, gold foil and wood, on canvas, board and paper. The human form and portraiture are predominant themes in many of the works.
The melancholic and intimate rendering of Tassaduq Sohail and Riaz Rafi’s combined painting, dated January 2015, from their joint show “Inimitable Consilience” held at Gallery 6, is riveting. It decodes human frailty and is nostalgic of expressionistic abstract painting. Mobina Zuberi’s large scale paintings are recent works from 2019. Her figures are delicate and luminous, sitting on the foreground of a subtle earthy background. There are three paintings by Mansur Aye; while two are small scale, the third is the painting of a Madonna like female figure on a large canvas, with a multitude of blue tones creating a harmonious colour composition.
The works of Abid Hassan and Salman Farooqi demand their own individual presence in the Gallery space. Their vivid red, yellow, blue and gold are visible from all angles of the show. Farooqi creates an architectural space through solid colour fields, with heavy black line work. On the other hand, Hassan builds his work through small tiles of abstract colour placed together, becoming a gilded fluid space.
Works of Iqbal Hussain and Nahid Raza hang in close proximity, but are poles apart in their technique and composition. Hussain has a central female figure, whereas Raza chooses to draw a group of figures. Hussain creates an emotive narrative in his brush work whereas Raza’s line work is dense and her paint, a unified blue layer. Yet, even with their differences, together these works are reminiscent of an exciting modern painting era of the past. The three paintings of Hussain in the exhibition were painted when he had come out of a coma. The works are personal, with their unfinished quality.
Modern fusing of miniature with cubism, with a central female subject, has been part of the modern Pakistani painting language for decades. The journey of this practice can be traced through the works of AS Rind, Abrar Ahmed, Nisar Ahmed, Akram Dost and Hajra Mansoor. These works are etched into the Pakistani art history, celebrated to this day as being revolutionary and transformative works of art.
Along with themes of human figures, the exhibition also captures the cultural and political view of painters of the past. The abstract oil painting by Maqsood Ali is inspired by the Ralli-making tradition from the south of Pakistan, a craft venerated as a cultural symbol. The only painting by the artist in the exhibition, it is a window into Ali’s art practice, which is anchored in ancient arts. The other lone painting is by Abdur Rahim Nagori, a caricature like depiction of the Pakistani socio-political environment. It is a loud and unapologetic painting with animated blue foxes and a pop art colour palette; it’s the odd one out in the Anniversary Exhibition.
Mansur Rahi and Hajrah Rahi have contributed to the art community their entire lives, offering mentorship and leading lives dedicated to their craft. The show includes works by both, each complimenting the other like a balancing scale of differences and similarities. The works might differ in technique, but are tied together through their similar sensibilities of expressionistic colour.
The Gallery has also acquired early works of R.M. Naeem, Irfan Gul Dahri, Imran Hunzai, Naiza Khan and Aqeel Solangi. These works by prominent contemporary artists would interest an enthusiastic young art collector, as their recent work is in a much higher price range. The Khan print, dated 2014, can be considered an essential building block of her current body of work. This year Khan is being featured at the Venice Biennale at the Inaugural Pakistan Pavilion. These early works tell a tale, of the long term representation and relationship these artists have shared with the Gallery.
Gallery 6 has pursued and refined artistic talent for over a decade, giving opportunities to artists for their first time exhibitions such as Akram Spaul, who paints realistic vibrant urban scenes. Shahla Rafi is another artist who had her first show within Pakistan with the Gallery. Her realistic landscape paintings capture the subtle light and the rugged charm of the Potohar with her fine technique.
Calligraphic works by Wasil Shahid and Bin Qalandar are included in the exhibition. Both the artists have unique techniques for creating their compositions. The impact that Bin Qalandar’s work has had nationally on calligraphy can be seen by the plethora of copies available at every print and framing shop of Pakistan. Shahid’s works remind one of al-Masjid al-Haram ("The Sacred Mosque"), Kaabaa. With its silent black backgrounds, and gold structured calligraphy, it feels monumental and architectural.
A collection of relationships among artists, friends, personal histories and experience, the 11th Anniversary Exhibition is a distillation of the most celebrated signature styles in painting of Pakistan. Now influencing corporate buyers, Gallery 6 is well on its way in shaping the Pakistani art market both online and through their exhibition space. It’s an artist oriented enterprise that values art practice and fostering artist careers under their watchful curatorial eye.
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