Nadeem Zuberi

A group show titled ‘Labyrinth’ dealt with life and our conscious and subconscious mind that influence our activities in life held at Full Circle Gallery, Karachi. Featuring artworks by artists Anas Abro, Ammad Tahir, Mazhar Qureshi and Manisha Jiani the exhibition attracted the visitors who wanted to see life through the eyes of the artists who explored various angles of life thus help understanding the complexities of life.

Anas Abro’s untitled paintings examine closely the human body structure in order to understand better and discover the relationship between body and soul. The paintings showed different body posters that seemed to identify a connection of emotions with a body.

Anas wanted his paintings to communicate with the viewers therefore he transformed his thoughts and ideas into his paintings. The figurative expressions of his works admire the beauty of a human body. He saw different gestures in parts of body may it be muscles or bones he believe every part of body has its on expression.

He tried to fuse our conscious mind with our subconscious mind that is our soul. He desired to discover the bond between body and soul. His keen observation of human figure helped him in expressing his state of mind through his figurative work. His figures do not show their faces and one has to comprehend while viewing the gestures of the figures which included hand, legs and a head.

Ammad Tahir’s paintings showed riot of colours and abundance of images. He seemed to use figures and colours in such quantity symbolically to describe the uncontrolled way of life in cities. The figures and colours diffuse with one another on the canvas thus creating rainbow of colours.

People nowadays behave without any personal control especially financially. People generally act violently in unrestricted way. He used flowers and aquatic creatures to identify the gravity of situation we are facing socially. His paintings titled “Creatures of the Night”, “Assassin” and “Envy” very clearly explained the atmosphere of a city in day and night.

Images merged and emerged between other images and colours just like people who tried to live a normal life in a big city. How a person dealt with the various circumstances and situation in a city.

Figures flow in Mazhar Qureshi’s paintings. He has chosen to paint figures in movement thus creating a different impression. Whether in colour or gray his paintings talk to the viewers through their moving gestures.

Just like life his figures move through thick and thin facing life. He very simply conveyed his message about life as life is moving forward the one who stops die. One can immediately identify the figures in a painting titled “Class Room” as everybody has drawn on a blackboard with a chalk in their student days and enjoyed it. That feeling of drawing and writing with a chalk on a blackboard was a childhood experience that goes with you throughout your life. The same way many good and bad experiences follow us throughout our life and die with us.

Same was the case with paintings titled “Gathering” and Angel Fish” as everyone has experience a gathering whether a wedding or an school assembly and Angel fish was once and always will be favorite pet of children.

Manisha Jiani’s almost gray paintings tackle the idea of identity which is a common issue of today’s society. The dual nature of identity of a person or place makes difficult for others to behave or react. The hide and seek of seen and unseen makes places and faces interesting at times and horrific at others.

Whenever we visit a place or meet a person we always find something new to ponder upon at a place and in the personality of the person we met. It means everything and everybody has many faces to be discovered by other people.

Manisha read Anderson Cooper’s saying: “The mark of a good book is, it changes every time you read it.” Thus she wanted to discover this phrase by herself and therefore painted new faces and feelings of a known face. Thus half visible and half invisible things and personalities roam around you which you have to find out with the passage of time. [email protected]