Once again the Canvas Art Gallery, Karachi has given an opportunity to four young, emerging artists who belong to the interior of Sindh to express themselves and receive encouragement and acclamation of the art lovers. The exhibition of paintings titled, 'News from Sindh II' is a sequel to its last year's exhibition of four young Sindh based artists.
All the young artists - Abdul Malik Channa, Arif Hussain Khokhar, Nizam Dahiri and Zahid Hussain Soomro are alumni of the National College of Arts, Lahore (NCA). Each of the artists explores different ends of existence, capturing various affects of social-political events according to their own ideology, thinking and understanding of the situation. Their expressions, symbols and medium create a body of work which is completely compatible thus effective. Every artwork shows artist's interest in conceptual art.
Abdul Malik Channa's work titled, 'Roti, kapra aur makaan', in pencil and tea wash on paper and another painting titled 'Bread and Butter' also in the same medium truly represents the basic need of common people drawing attention to the horrible reality that basic human needs are not available to all. One has to struggle for bread and butter and therefore could not think of something else. He claims himself to be a realist and want to work on actual, factual and real subjects of life thus finding the truth.
Arif Hussain Khokhar explores how human emotions manifest themselves in physical world she deals with growing western influences contained within certain social norms hence defining the contrast of our society. He symbolises his work with everyday objects such as belt, nara, shalwar, jeans, folds, knots etc. All of his paintings depicts western influence on our society in graphite and coloured pencil works. One of his works shows a jeans and a shalwar with a belt through the loop, thus representing the fusion of two opposite cultures -east and west. He draws the basic elements so that common people can understand his view point easily and clearly. I agree with Khokhar, we adopted western influence along with our traditions in our daily lives that are unnoticeably creating a mess which we deliberately don't want to see. We call it globalisation - and don't want to understand an imposition of culture to culture. Ignoring the inspiration from the western culture is eating our traditional culture bit by bit.
Nizam Dahiri's paintings portray a current situation that has changed our history by using national symbols. In one of his paintings he depicts an image of Moen Jo Daro on a ten rupee note reflecting the present state of our historic site, which has lost its true identity and respect and only its picture remain on a ten rupee note reminding of its existence. The other paintings 'Flag' and 'Supreme Court' all in oil on canvas show a double print of the images trying to portray an uncertain socio-political environment. He thus shows an identity and reflection of objects thus defining the subject to the viewers.
Zahid Hussain Soomro works in black and white based on different social behaviours of people in different situations regarding their status in society. The works 'Bird', 'Black and White' and 'Nest' convey their message much easily than his other works.
The budding artists have taken the full advantage of the event and their exposure proves fruitful in promoting their work. The collection of paintings with innovative ideas shows the skills of young artists in a distinctive style, portraying their thoughts regarding society. But needs to add depth to their work and also be careful in the choice of a medium, which is the basic component in artworks.
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