Written by: Shameen Arshad
Posted on: November 07, 2022 | 
| 中文
A Scattered Sign by Khadijah Rehman
Exhibition “The Spark” at Satrang Art Gallery, Islamabad, discusses the reciprocal relationship between the female and space. Each of the four artists, Khadijah Rehman, Amna Rahman, Zara Asgher, and Aimen Manzoor, talks about their environment being an inevitable part of their identity, predominately discussing how gender roles define physical spaces and vice versa, as space transforms in accordance with gender.
The exhibit opened to the public on the evening of 2nd November 2022, igniting debates on several issues; the mutability of spaces, the perils of society, and the individualistic readings of society determined by strict gender roles within a patriarchal system. Space is seen as sustaining social order; how the interaction of individuals with their surroundings or lack thereof determines social hierarchy, and how gender difference is a deciding factor in how spaces are inhabited.
Art enthusiasts at the gallery
The artists share their experiences on canvases as they navigate these roles and labels outlined for them, presenting a wider idea of what it is to be a “woman” and the complexities of their nature that might not be evident or adhering to fixed gender roles. The show reveals how each artist deals with conventionality within the Pakistani society; what they absorb and what they reject establishing their independent worldview. The exhibit also offers a comparison of reality and idealism, raising questions on what constitutes either one.
Amna Rahman uses her practice to challenge social norms and the idea of a “woman” in Pakistani society. She presents the female as a myriad of things; adventurous, warm, audacious, caring, and uninhibited. Rahman’s female characters comfortably occupy public spaces, laughing and chatting under the sun, the mark of carefree individuals, that simply exist in her imaginings. The off-centre compositions and candid settings show how the women have not been classically positioned in these spaces. They have simply been allowed to move within the frame, unaware of being watched, perhaps representing the artist’s idea of an ideal world devoid of the “male gaze”, or constantly living under the microscope.
An Emotional Frenzy by Amna Rahman
She builds a utopian world, an alternative to the patriarchal world she resides within, where her characters are not bogged down by heteronormative settings, revealing how the human mind and body are restrained to fit in a particular space, deprives us of experiencing the many complexities that make up an individual. Rahman’s saturated colour palette adds to the idea of a dream-like space. It also suggests a livelier setting favourable to life within it.
The illustrated hand gestures in Zara Asgher’s etchings, on first look, resemble controversial iconography. However, on closer inspection, reveals itself to be quite the opposite; it shows a caring or protective act of providing cover or shelter. The images are constructed on the ideas of four walls or a house, the arms of the figures raised to act as a roof to keep the rain out. The artist points out the irony of the “keepers” of society also being the eventual cause of burning things to the ground. The title “The Spectacle of Enclosure & the Illusion of Safety” and “Ordered disorder”, further suggests vulnerability. Furthermore, it is interesting to see how images essentially based on the experience of the fairer sex, have no representation of the female form. The image is dominated by the male figure, further reinstating the fact that it is “a man’s world and we are all just living in it”. It also highlights their lack of visibility in the public sphere.
Ordered Disorder by Zara Asgher
Manzoor, as she puts it, likes to recreate “the ordinary” every day that is familiar to most of us, with a little manipulation that makes it seem a little withdrawn from the usual. The empty backdrops separate her depicted scenes from the physical world as we know it, giving the objects or her characters an autonomous standing. They are entities in themselves unaffected by their surroundings, a feature that makes her work surreal as nothing in the physical world stands by itself.
Three Men by Aimen Manzoor
Khadijah Rehman uses the flatness of gouache painting, the awkwardness of collage compositions, and the line quality of digital illustration to build her compositions. The work is a beautiful mixture of past and present painting techniques and visuals that well represent the multidimensionality of South Asian women. The images can be read as the absolute reality of the artist. It can be seen as the layering of her physical world as well as the intangible that determines her worldview. However, the unlikely placement of objects and the composition gives it the look of a dreamscape.
Furthermore, by extracting real-life characters from old family photographs and reassigning them to unreal settings, the artist blurs the lines between reality and fantasy. The spaces are both magical as well as very real. The characters may seem unearthly, but we cannot deny photographic evidence or the details and specificity of the jewellery that her characters adorn.
Dreams of Aquatic Realms I by Amna Rahman
Rehman’s delicately rendered fruit convinces us of its delectable nature. Their immaculate treatment pulls focus from the abundance of visuals. The defined outline surrounding the characters and the objects, gives it the look of a collage suggesting it is a story woven from more than just her personal life, for it suggests a collective narrative woven together over time, resulting in its inclusive nature.
It is perhaps not politically correct to call the show a display of works by female artists as they should be referred to as just “artists”. That may be true, but the feminine perspective contains within it greater complexities of those that have to navigate the world around them more carefully.
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