islamabad - An exhibition of artworks by Annem Zaidi, Sara Pagganwala, Faryal Ahsan, Zahra Malkani, Cyra Ali and Scheherazade Junejo is ongoing at Satrang Gallery.
Titled “Through the Looking Glass”, the display is a unique exploration of portraiture by the six artists.
Annem Zaidi is a graduate of the National College of Arts. In her works, featured in the exhibition, Zaidi has illustrated a sturdier facade of the women that makes them exceptional in being more pliable within a social structure.
In some of the portraits by Zaidi, which are all oil on canvass, each woman face seems to own a distinct visage with unique expressions.
But, despite differences in contours, they all share a single attribute that links them. Zaidi defines this communal trait as the ‘courage’ of women.
She has portrayed innovation in the mode of expression as is reflected in her two artworks; one shows how a sobbing heart is turned into stone and second delicately exposes the paramount experience of transition-a paradigm shift in painting indeed.
Her portraits of women deal with some defining moments of life such as when someone dispels illusions (awakening), faces truth (revealing), feels surrender (relieving), gets away (freeing), and remains unscathed. Clarity of though is conforming to the precision of paintings as is emanated from the eyes of all the female portraits.
Faryal Ahsan, in the abstract imagery of women faces, is apparently depicting the acid victims in multiple layers to portray the different stages of agony bore by them.
But, a deep look reveals that she is carrying a larger frame of abstract expression dealing with the ideas of evolution and family relations of natural species. A ray of hope and light traversing the defined pathway compared to test of the natural elements gives preference and significance to humanity, conflicting characterisation of personalities, fixed mysteries of right and wrong, issues of protection of the house of humanity (earth) and involuntary misdeeds by humans against environment of globe.
Sara Pagganwala has used mixed materials and modes to express her ideas that include dead-end complexities, appalling miseries in love, parroting for one-pound fish, power of money manipulating puppets in media and various concepts of exodus of origin in the emerging world.
Zahra Malkani has compassionately painted portraits of missing persons showing vacuum, betrayal, passion, competition and deep love in their eyes, an igniting house though getting illuminated, and finally eliminated and transformed into daybreak light.
Cyra Ali’s acrylic and needlepoint on canvass speaks for the uniformity and equivalence between men and women in terms of their rights to express desires, which is invers to the prevalent social norms in a patriarchal society.
Scheherazade Junejo has painted multilayered personalities of individuals in her two works titled ‘Quinate’ and ‘Bilateral III’.
The exhibition will run through October 17.