In the current climate of social and political chaos, negotiating states of fear, anxiety and suppression is common fare amongst artists. Injured, angst-ridden, brash or defiant, their art scores if artists bring singular aesthetic definition to their expressive responses. The recent three-artist exhibition at the Canvas Gallery, Karachi, “The Fine Line” affirms that singularity and novelty piques interest and attracts viewership even if the issues being investigated are familiar and have been addressed by countless artists as many times.
Of the three participants, Cyra Ali and Fatima Munir, both Indus Valley graduates, incorporate embroidery as a communicative element in their art. In a country with an intensive and extensive needlecraft history the term ‘embroidery’ immediately brings to mind the wealth of Kashmiri, Sindhi and Balochi stitch craft still widely practised today. But as a mixed media addition in cross disciplinary contemporary art practice embroidery, both machine and hand stitch, gains another life altogether.
Ali mixes needlepoint with acrylic as a feminine artistic device to illustrate her rebellion against conventional norms that inhibit women’s personal freedom. Her compositions, figurative or fantasy oriented are motif-based. She takes inspiration from the design / motif typical to print fabric and is partial to floral bouquet effects or repeat patterns. From afar the appearance of her canvases is that of patterned print fabric but up-close the motifs often reveal themselves as sinister, scandalous objects like arrowheads, scissors, etc, which speak of injury and pain as well as struggle, resistance and confrontation.
A three-artist exhibition explores deep psychological conflicts
Attractive and celebratory, her piece ‘Dil Bagh Bagh Hua’ is subtly underscored with a grasping voracious streak where tiny, lithe but menacingly rapacious fish swim in a sea adorned with multi-hued floral blooms and water jets. The imaginary garden tapestry ‘Sada Khush Raho’ painted and embroidered with thought-provoking motifs like scales of justice, minarets, garlands, garden path, religious mother figure, bridal couple and toddler pram is a satirical ode to blessings parents shower on newlyweds.
Critique by contrived deception — enacted through veiled differences in the macro and micro image — is a common contemporary art ploy, and Ali perks this strategy with her cheeky mixed media stylisations. Her raw and garish embroidered / painted portraits, ‘Heroine and Raat ki Rani’, bear the traits of personality profiles. There is originality in this approach towards portraiture and the artist should consider developing it further. Munir an artist, a mother and concerned citizen, counters the anxiety and insecurity associated with violence and instability by recreating images (ink jet print on canvas) of blown-up sites, wreckages, grieving humanity, ambulances and portraits of martyrs and saviours and then overlaying them with embroidery. Likenesses of Sabeen Mahmud and Parveen Rehman on canvas immediately connect the viewer with activism in a politically volatile environment. The artist valourises them with by surrounding their images with brightly coloured embroidered floral wreaths. By embroidering a wing next to the image of Abdus Sattar Edhi Munir portrays him as an angel of mercy.
Visuals of destruction are similarly treated with a light tracery of embroidered motifs. In traditional South Asian households needlework was once considered an important skill for young girls to acquire and Munir was trained in the craft at an early age. She associates needlework with the steadiness, peace and tranquility of those earlier years. By incorporating it into her art she spreads a veneer of calm and stability on an otherwise devastating image.
An NCA graduate / sculptor Umar Nawaz’s handiwork, an iron metal cylinder splintered with fractures and fissures, illustrates the magnitude or intensity of ‘pressure’ applied to rupture an otherwise inflexible surface. Likewise a metallic sheet of silver steel crumpled like paper is again a show of physical strength or forceful application whereby it is deformed from a smooth to a furrowed or wrinkled state. Such surface manipulations speak of physical sculptural treatments. Conceptually creation of material distress can also allude to imposition of mental anguish.
As a show it is artistry with mixed media interventions in “The Fine Line” that initially catch the eye but it is the deeper psychological conflicts hidden in the artworks that hint at the thin line between what the artist feels should or should not be.
Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, September 20th, 2015
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