ART FACTS: myriad of cultural influences

A group exhibition titled "Microcosm 2" at Gandhara Art Gallery, Karachi was curated by Adeel uz Zafar. It was a second part of a group show titled "Microcosm" based on the conviction that some of the most radical gestures in the art history have been carried out by the artists in early stages of their career.
The present show also followed the theme of the former and further expands the concept. It also helped in investigating that the stars of tomorrow's art scene can bring a myriad of visual cultural influences in their art practice. There were 16 artists who participated in current survey of contemporary art show according to the exhibition title.
All artists were born in 80's or after and previously hadn't had any major exhibits. The exhibition's main purpose was to show how this generation of artists experiencing and reinterpreting their attitude, identity, environment, tastes, sexualities and political learning through their artwork.
The exhibition offers detailed multi-disciplinary visual artworks in a variety of media ranging from drawing, painting, sculpture, installation, illustration, photography, and video. Rameez Rehman's bold colour paintings were based on his observations of society. His perspective of a society can be seen in painting titled "A silent conversation Series" in mirror on acrylic sheet.
The multi-colours of the work showed many shades of different colours presented many personalities and cultural values we encounter in our lives. A video titled "Transformation" was also presented by him to support his views.
Madiha Hyder's stop motion animation titled "Time" portraying a cat while playing in different positions and playful gestures in black and white reminds the good old days of childhood when nobody has any tensions and worries a free playful life just like a cool breeze.
Babar Gull's blue artworks titled "There is no darkness but ignorance" and "And let the light shine" in hand scoring and gauche on wasli depicted that the earth is integrated with the space and the people that inhabit that space. There is darkness in space that created void but in reality there are light and other objects that are sailing in that dark space within a void.
Sabir Ali Talpur's black and white Pen on paper - stippling work titled "News Article" portrayed our newspapers their news placements and page format that is almost the same day after day. The headlines and the continuations filled the pages of the newspaper from various worldwide news and local news but nobody bother to take action after reading news about an incident. They just read and fold the newspaper back.
Masood Subhani used rust as a medium to express his expressions on canvas in an untitled piece of work. The shades of rust colour made patterns on the canvas which seemed to be folded to attain the desired look of the canvas. But it showed that even rust is uneven how come people can be trained alike a robots.
Batool Zehr's black and white art pieces in ash on MDF titled "Had I known the charm of fragility" and stop motion animation with ash titled "A Static, Dynamic, Static" revealed that just like her ash artworks people are so delicate and can be broken easily as they had heart the most sophisticated organ.
Wajahat Saeed's hand embroidery in red and black colour on white cloth showed a similar border in both art pieces having same title "The chosen path of aggression" say it all. Hamida Khatri's stop motion animation titled "Laal Ribbon" and Syed Hammad Gillan's untitled video projection was also part of the show along with Wajid Ali's untitled Permanent pen on acrylic sheet, glass, Valchromate, backlit artworks were like a map of the city outlining everything without colours.
Suleman Arshad's untitled paper leftovers on wasli, Rabia Khan's wall installations in foam, plaster, plastic and emulsion paint, Hasnain Ali's carved graphite art pieces titled "Sneak peak" and "No privacy", Numair Abbasi's interactive piece variable titled "Test me and I'll shoot you" and Sahar Musharaf's ceramic terracotta artworks. (The writer can be reached at [email protected])