Humble submission

Nadeem Zuberi

Acclaimed sculptor and ceramist Talat Dabir’s experimental approach resulted in spontaneous and full of energy sculptures. She always captures diverse themes in a unique manner. Her artistic skills take shape in an innovative style showing her mastery in the medium in a recent solo exhibition of sculptures, art reliefs and drawings at Clifton Art Gallery, Karachi.

Having contemporary perspective her artworks were a pleasant and unforgettable experience for the art lovers. Her recent body of work titled “Submissive Self” depicted stories woven around social infrastructure and human psyche.

Her new series was different from the previous work. This time she has moulded sculptures like paintings with different colours and symbols in clay and terracotta.

It has been over forty years of her relation to the art world. She is a senior artist her work was thoughtful, deep, and some what mysterious and mature. Her sculptures and reliefs speak volumes about social issues.

She has a spacious basement studio and kiln where she moulds her creative spark into sculptures. She explored the medium through different structures giving a variety of colours combination; inventing stylistic work depicting a particular theme.

She has touched every aspect of life through her art that’s why her art pieces created a link with the viewers by engaging them in a dialogue. She has done some of the best works but in her recent work she has used interesting forms of humans, beast and birds that has given her work a more contemporary feel.

The exhibited works presented a series of sculptures and reliefs in a totally different manner. The recent collection was a series of enigmatic pieces with strong feelings and emotions carved and moulded in sculptures. Over all she addressed humanity.

She talked about how men and women both submit themselves to other humans’ men as well as women to obey their commands with out any intensive questioning. They give themselves into others authority, control or demands. These simple people do not defer to other’s knowledge, judgement or experience. They just obey others and allowed others to control them.

The third dimension of the pieces was invoked by various symbolic patterns and elements attached to the sculptures enhancing their meaning and philosophy.

One can feel the laborious work of moulding and carving that results in such an impressive work. Her artworks featured an amalgamation of abstract behaviours and real expressions. The exquisite art pieces focus on everyday issues around us which directly or indirectly affect our lives. Exploring various human forms and feelings she combined the rhythm of vibrant colours of sand and creative ethos to express wonderfully the world of emotions.

The three dimensional compositions arranged with birds, animals and fish especially cats, elegantly interposed with elongated human figures. Hands are a prominent feature of sculptures the slim slender forms has large hands as compared to the face and body. Many of the sculptures were single forms some show embracing couples or groups depicting brotherhood and peace and harmony.

The figures juxtaposed with various elements filling spaces like ropes and sea shells and other organic forms. The basic concept of her artworks lies in the problems of our society.

She captured her feelings in the form of sculptures, art reliefs and drawings. All of her works were subject oriented drawing attention of the public towards an issue and help them carving their views about that issue.

The deep concepts related to human lives evolved into these fine structures reflecting various perspectives through lines and figures. The clay in her hand moulds in historical events, architectural feats, nature and human evolution.

Some of the works produced illusions like fairy tales, beautiful and eye catching. Talat’s imagination and sensitivity gave clay different shapes of life. Each art piece portrayed emotions and passion. Her primary objective was to highlight human condition through sculptures.

The detail of her sculptures was commendable and speaks volumes about her artistic skills. Engaged and involved in creative work producing sculptures she was actually transforming herself in these art pieces.

She has many solo and group shows to her credit. She made many sculptures on commission to commemorate a historical event, or the life of a well known person. Many sculptures are intended as public art, exhibited outdoors or in public buildings for the edification of passers-by, with a larger magnitude than normal words could ever have for the common man. Such huge sculptures of Talat Dabir are installed in many cities of our country.

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