Beauty - a vague form in shadows
Nadeem Zuberi
Beauty is a vague form in the shadows of a person’s imagination. Imrana Tanveer brought into question the indistinct understanding of beauty in this world and beyond through her solo exhibition of paintings at Sanat Gallery, Karachi.
Beauty is highly complex subject. As a common saying is “Beauty lies in the eyes of beholder”, means beauty doesn’t exists on its own but it is created by an observer. Therefore, beauty doesn’t mean flawlessness or perfection; for one person it could be harmony but for another person it could be visual fallacy.
Titled “I See a Premonition”, the collection of paintings comprising of seventy two works were done in inkjet print on art paper and golden Zari thread. The paintings represented the very core idea of having Hoors in life hereafter thus the imaginary and proclaiming beauty of the alluring ‘Women of Heaven’ was presented in the artworks.
Imrana Tanveer holds degrees from National College of Arts (NCA), Lahore and Textile Institute of Pakistan, Karachi. That’s why her work incorporates weaving and textiles, and appropriates iconic images from both Western and Pakistani art and culture to address social and political issues.
The floor installation was beautiful as the entire gallery was covered with layers of Thermo Cole, creating the beauty and purity of afterlife. The four larger works were representation of having four wives as according to traditions, the wife will always have an upper hand on the Hoorin.
The idea of duality in beauty was discussed in a pleasant style by the artist. Her manifestations reflected the aesthetics of woman’s beauty. Is anything living or non-living can be judged beautiful or ugly on the basis of very pleasing and impressive to listen to, to touch, or especially to look at? There is not a standard rule or criteria to calculate beauty. It is a person’s own judgement about anything to be beautiful.
Hence everybody has different decisions and different choices in life and same goes about beauty. By using distorted images of ‘beautiful’ women Imrana portrayed the lives of different women. These women were spending lavish lives in various gestures and poses with glamorous background settings and situations. The extravagant decorations of the paintings showed aureate furniture and heavily decorated walls with mirrors and paintings and pleasure gardens. Women dressed in heavy gowns in bright colours and wearing jewels and gems.
The golden zari used to woven shredded strips of images created a noble look of the paintings. The distorted figures of women having white paint in place of their bare skin create curiosity in the viewers and they use their imagination to fill the empty parts of the figures. Hence the paintings engage the viewers in a creative way.
The surrounding of the figures was dazzling this created an imperial atmosphere of the paintings. When you observe all of these distinctive characteristics allure viewers to imagine and fantasize their ideals as indulging in wishful thinking is the best pastime for human beings.
People now-a-days spend their half life in finding their ideal. It seemed it is an intrinsic part of humans to pursuit that is impossible to achieve or is illusory.
Just like dreams Imrana painted same compositions with little variations of background and flowers, garden and room thus same designs and arrangements recur in her paintings.
Although paintings appeared visually beautiful but has blank spaces specially the face of the figures were replaced by blank white spaces with a suggestive outline of the face features so that viewers can use their imagination and solve the puzzle. This technique engaged the viewer longer in front of a single painting thus achieving a goal of creating a dialogue between the painting and the viewer.
The faceless figures attracted viewers to replace the faces with their desired fantasized ideal personality’s face. Although faceless but the women figures gestures showed their role in society such as queen, musician, waitress, entertainer and muse. It’s the viewer’s choice which role he/she wanted to fill according to their imagination.
“The visuals are appropriation of the famous paintings of beautiful women from Baroque and mostly Rococo periods including the maids, queens, princesses and muses alike. Heaven or Earth, the objectification of the woman is always there. The reason to choose the western paintings is how we fantasize the beauty of white women with flawless, hairless skin and tender bosoms.”
“I deliberately removed the bodily features of the painted women into white, referring the white skin like bright moon and shredded the work and reassembled it to question the narration of the beauty with distortion,” Imrana Tanveer explained.
Thus her paintings challenge our romanticized ideals of perfection as Hoor is also an idealised figure which is supposed to be perfect by all means. People misunderstood the fact that humans are not perfect and a woman is also a human being and a desire to find the perfect most desirable woman is a daydream. People must have a realistic approach in life regarding women and should imagine a human as a life partner not a Hoor. [email protected]
