The Protean Place

AFIYA ASIF

ARTIST STATEMENT:
A lost voice or a silent protest. What appears to be the end of something could it possibly be a beginning. So begins my investigation in search of a life that once had a home but now appears stranded. My work has been driven by a personal desire to explore unseen spaces or spaces that often go unnoticed within the city. These hidden spaces often find themselves responding to naturally found objects that have been removed from their rightful spaces and have come together too voice out their discomfort.

AISAR ABBAS

ARTIST STATEMENT:
This work is a collection of various toys and daily life objects that are collected from flea markets. My aim was to create work that represented childhood memories and the changes that occur throughout the growth of a person. I have created these works by combining two different objects and creating a hybrid creature out of it. When I originally created one hybrid work by combining two different objects, the objects still retained their identity. As a result, I drew my pieces using a ballpoint pen because I wanted to see them as one work executed with the same medium.

ALIZA GHAFFAR

ARTIST STATEMENT:
This body of work considers the over urbanization taking place in the residential and commercial area of Gulistan-e-Jauhar, Karachi. Inspired by the real estate housing schemes we read about in newspapers and on the web, the work discusses the conflict and politics behind high-rise
buildings and their hasty construction in the city. The new infrastructure relays feelings of congestion, haphazardness and uncertainty, which I personally witness on a day to day basis. I chose painting as a medium as its flexible and versatile nature helped me explore distortion, layering and color through which I could visually translate the aforementioned feelings. This work eventually progressed to include three dimensional compositions, where various geometric shapes are placed in order to acquire a sense of randomness which suggests my views and ideas
around development in my city. The three dimensional work basically depicts the process of construction and also left behind construction, which started off but couldn’t continue due to conflicts. These small sculptures are vibrantly painted in primary colors which attracts the viewers eye, however when looked on closely, it reminds you of the random constructions happening around the city of Karachi.

AMNA SADIQ FEROZ

ARTIST STATEMENT:
This body of work explores parts of the urban landscapes of Karachi through formalist abstraction. I enjoy minimalist abstraction and am very interested in ideas of form, shape, composition and color. The abstract patterns in my paintings are inspired from window grills in atypical homes of Karachi. I began observing and working with these during quarantine and over time I began enjoying the simplicity of their form. Color is used as an integral tool to study the inside-outside relationships of windows which serves as a portal of light. Light plays a fundamental part in the color selection process coupled with Josef Albers color theory. The way color is perceived by humans is influenced by a number of factors such as the surrounding context of other colors around it, lighting conditions, what we look at before and after and much more.

ARIBA AKHLAQUE

ARTIST STATEMENT:
The death of a parent shatters you but at the same time it makes you stronger. In order to keep our relationship intact with the people we have lost, we tend to cling to things, ordinary objects, that were once associated with them. This state of bereavement is communicated through personal belongings that hold deep meaning and significance. Such objects elicit deliberate or involuntary memories of a place, a culture, a relationship or events of the past. This body of work celebrates cherished memories and lost moments evoked by things from the past
that we keep with us. Belongings of a loved one, a dried rose, motia phool or a gajra have also been an essential element of the work; depicting how time elapsed but the emotional connotations attached to some objects remains forever. In essence, my work is about personal loss, grief and time which I have attempted to show through documenting objects in different ways which resonate with the language of nostalgia.

ASWAD ANEES

ARTIST STATEMENT:
The relative pace and energies of a metropolis became an interesting aspect for me. An experience of a large metropolis built on the movement of people, transport, ideas, migrations and dreams. My project is a representation of content and is an understanding of the experience of the routes and traffic of the city as I have experienced through my navigation.

BILAL JABBAR

ARTIST STATEMENT:
The work is mostly inspired by daily life observations and experiences, where I mould them into new perspectives. I explore every object’s functionality that is accessible to me through its new and unique identities that I perceive for them and bring forward independent and interactive bodies of work that reflect unique experiences for every observer.

BUSHRA MALIK

ARTIST STATEMENT:
As a frequent train traveller from Karachi to my hometown chakwal I developed a fascination with the train station’s atmosphere and the spirit it holds within. As a journey begins and comes to an end , the constant moving and shifting loading and unloading of goods , the frenzy of the people, the rush disruption, chaos contribute to the urban energy experienced in space. Using gestural mark making I am trying address the
spirit of being at the station as these energies make the railway station a transpositional space for the traveller.

HAFSA MOIN

ARTIST STATEMENT:
My paintings are about the hidden stories of my family. Certain events of the past that are never spoken about, since they are considered dishonorable to the family. The visuals are a recreation of moments of traumatic memory and how I remember them. They depict the interpersonal tensions and the hush that envelops it. The hidden ancestral history emerges from these paintings, each depicting different settings of authority, conversation, secrecy and the complex, unspoken tragedy suffered by the family members. Where every character painted is playing a role in the overall narrative. The narrative is woven with a subdued color palette, inverted visuals and cropped figures, so that the identity of the characters is not revealed. The negative paintings can be inverted through a Negative filter on Instagram or Snapchat or Negative App Pro which is available on Android and App Store.

INSHAL TAHIR

ARTIST STATEMENT:
Taking forward the research of the Banyan Trees and the widespread beliefs associated with them especially in the context of spirituality I have explored the constructs of my own imagination, the place between dreams and reality where it provides a means for me to look into my own desires. The Banyan Trees thus become a point of departure allowing me to freely explore and seek out the tendencies and the capacities for personal growth and connections. Further on, along with the banyan trees I have included elements from my own dreams in an attempt to make sense of an “inner dimension” that my subconscious and conscious mind are constantly shaping.

MASHAAL AMJAD

ARTIST STATEMENT:
Karachi’s fishing techniques deplete the sea’s natural resources by employing unsustainable tactics that interrupt the natural cycle of marine life. My work talks about the ecological shift and projects the evolution of marine life in the next one hundred years in our seas where these practices are still continuing. The mutations in this project are caused by pollution, which is firmly embedded in Karachi’s fishing industry methods. With its inadequate use of fishing techniques and the dumping of fishing gear and debris, this form of industry has polluted the environment of Karachi’s marine life. Exploiting this natural resource has resulted in the irreversible loss of marine life.Painted landscapes with motor oil from Hora boats reveal an imaginative future of how these animals will adapt to the new changes caused by humans. These works suggest that animals take the form of vessels, native to the particular fishing areas of Karachi, as well as its pollutants, and mutate in order to survive. Once Karachi has exhausted this natural resource and with more waste in the sea than fish, marine life may collapse and humans may be the next to vanish.

SAAD QAZI

ARTIST STATEMENT:
My work revolves around the idea of space and the presence of change and transition. Linear lines are symbolically portraying the movement and steady development. These lines, parallel or intersecting, have coherence in them and are an immediate reflection of Motion that an individual may constantly experience in different capacities of their life. There is always a beginning and an end to a cycle of change and that movement is always certain.

SUMBAL BALOCH

ARTIST STATEMENT:
When a loved one passes away, it feels as if the people who are left behind die too, the only difference is that they still exist in this world, much like the space they leave behind. Death brings many changes with it – but the one least noticed is the change it brings to a space; a home. My work is about my connection to the house I once called home. Once a vibrant and alive space, it has now turned into a graveyard of past memories ravaged by time and death.

SYEDA HUDA TIRMIZI

ARTIST STATEMENT:
Through exploring the dynamics of early childhood education and institutions in Pakistan, it is noticeable that the negligence and toxicity exposed from the disparity between adolescents is ever prevalent. Early childhood trauma inflicts patterns that exist throughout a lifetime. Revisiting the physical spaces and memories associated with these traumatic experiences renders a range of emotions, both negative and positive. Being denied the experience to engage in playground activities as a child creates an unhealthy and traumatising relationship with these spaces and memories in adulthood. The influence and inspiration of adolescent experiences behind this piece comments on the ability to reclaim and rewrite associations that were created early in life.

UMAINA KHAN

ARTIST STATEMENT:
My work discusses the generic representation of the female body, which emphasizes unrealistic beauty standards. My work deviates from the so-called flawless idea of beauty, and I make these candy-like figures as a critique to those who see women as objects and candies.