Exploring tradition in modernity

Nadeem Zuberi

Miniature painting is a traditional style of art form that is very rich in history that continues today by artists from around the globe. The contemporary artists use miniature painting in today’s modern art with new ideas and styles. Artist Ahmed Javed infused traditional practices of miniature painting with modern times themes in a series of paintings exhibited at Sanat Gallery, Karachi. Titled ‘A Series of Fortunate Events’ the paintings portrayed the current issues through the centuries old miniature art. Thus he has been exploring tradition in modernity.

The Mughal Miniature era is famous for recording of court life, royal portraits, exotic flora and fauna, hunting and garden scenes but it is very detailed art that needs patience and commitment and therefore more popular among the art lovers.

As the old masters documented lives of the royal, Ahmed decided to document life of common people in present time. He documented the everyday life of people including their rituals and prayers. He tried to preserve traditional miniature while portraying its existence in present context.

He ingeniously created dialogue about the fact that how our traditions control and influence our lives. He used playfully the size and perspective of certain areas, objects and figures. His paintings were like stories and he narrated the stories successfully through his works like a storyteller using various components and imagery to describe the events and situations while the objects and images supported the theme of his paintings. A painting showed a lion tamed by men depicting human’s dominance over a beast.

He also portrayed religious sacrificial celebrations in some of his paintings revealing animal slaughter like camel, goat and cow during Eid-ul-Azha in a drive way of a house thus revealing another side of people who unknowingly agreed to do things in their own houses, which they believe sacred without acknowledging their side effects. One may slaughter the animals at a separate hygiene place but we only consider our convenience without understanding the social influences of our acts.

He has a keen eye and he very skilfully used key visual elements to convey his message.

A touching scene from a mosque in one of the paintings represented the security situation in present times. With a few young men performing ablution, one of them sits at the mat, while a man holding a gun stands on guard at the entrance of the mosque thus reminding of the current uncertainty in our society.

People and relationships seemed to be lost somewhere in our society only power and material things held us together. He highlighted daily life in paintings depicting a fish seller with his produce sit on an unmarked sidewalk, a bicycle parked against a brick wall and a cat sit while waiting to eat the leftover by the fish seller. This whole situation pointed towards a cycle of lie in our society that depends on one another since years after years past by but the life of a common man remains the same.

He created paintings in miniature stylization, technique and multiple perspectives based on actual environment and people.

Ahmed revived and recaptured our sense of belonging through his exploration of tradition and modernity. His works were amalgamation of past and present. He carefully interpreted is fascination with tradition in modern times. As tradition lives in close contact with its environment Ahmed used his art to explore and preserve heritage through his observations.

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