Written by: Nayha Jehangir Khan
Posted on: May 24, 2022 | 
| 中文
RM Naeem with the artists and art enthusiasts at Tanzara Art Gallery
Thirteen Pakistani female artists share their collective experiences on being female as the central theme in the exhibition titled “Eve’s I/Eye”, hosted by Tanzara Art Gallery. These artists were invited by RM Naeem to bring together their explorative painting techniques, ideological methodologies, personal histories and perspective on creating art. Through their paintings, they explore the emotive state of the human condition through the lens of being female.
The viewer enters Sana Arjumand’s multilayered visualizations of the female experience that feels personal and intense. The artist explores a heightened awareness of the senses using symbolism and allegory to understand the consciousness behind complex emotions. The flower symbolizes light, and the hands gently holding on to the stems are associated with the heart. The artist has a sense of clarity about the deep connection between her environment, spirituality and the body. In the paintings “Flower and Fear” and “Hope and Fear” have a gradient of red tones that demand the attention of the viewer yet the delicate rendering of skin, the human likeness in the eyes, draws in the viewer for closer study of the figure. What initially looked like heritage motifs in the background, soon are read as barbed wire indicative of danger.
Saba Khan envisions a female superhero that has had to evolve due to the toxic and unnatural forces at play in the environment. Through her work, she calls to attention the plight of the endangered Indus dolphin as it too has had to evolve and alter its physiology to survive through the ages. The protagonist in these works is assertive, committed and passionate, leading other women in “Mining For Water”. The “Sonic Signals” has a futuristic graffiti accompanying the figure that states, “My eyes were rendered useless. I now rely on Sonic Signal”, revealing that the female is aware of the loss of her previous self and now accepts her altered state of being.
Circle by Rehana Mangi
The artist Rehana Mangi revisits her childhood memories recalling intergenerational associations with embroidery. These innocent experiences of the past have evolved through abstract use of found materials, such as human hair. This subversive act of using hair to create meticulous threadwork has a therapeutic release for the artist and viewer. The pieces “Circle” and “Oval” have motifs that emerge from a desire for control recalling memories spent at her grandmother's house as a child. Their commanding presence is anchored by a perfectly woven grid with wiry hair strand ends, erupting out of the frame with the quality of a razor-sharp blade.
Nausheen Saeed sculptural works take reinforced concrete, transforming them into painterly scapes of pale white. She traces the emotional progression of a female’s inner journey by creating a visual metaphor between the emotive and material quality of concrete. The immediate and the present are captured through activating the deadweight of concrete in “Anatomy Of Time I & II” and “Mapping The Terrain I, II, III” to an ephemeral state. The weathering of the surface mended with gestural textures and organic forms are unlike the reality of the material which is supposed to be hard and rigid.
Guftugu 2 by Meher Afroz
As life progresses onto the next stage, artist Meher Afroz recounts the qualities required to have a passionate existence. The force with which she lives her life is similar to the way she creates her works. In her view, belief is the foundation of human existence that she visually layers on her canvas with honesty, kindness, love and acknowledgement of sacrifice. Laila Rahman explores the origins of the female form through the study of the pomegranate. She chooses to replace the apple as the fruit of the original sin, and replaces it with another natural form. Her interest in the completion of a life cycle defines all nature to be similar to female existence. In her works “Omphalos” and “Babel Tower”, these circular canvases further emphasize the life cycle as a continuing experience which has a spectrum of complex emotional experiences.
Omphalo by Laila Rahman
Rabeya Jalil has deconstructed representational forms using gestural painterly mark making as her medium. Her goal is to move beyond the familiar, using slow abstraction that creates opportunities for chance, repetition and movement. These orchestrations are evident in the muralistic paintings titled “Eves” and “Painting” that use building blocks of smaller paintings collected together in one place, like a gathering or protest of a strong and autonomous group completely in sync. Nazia Ejaz uses the themes of Eve to continue her investigation into expressing visuals through poetry, using it as a launching point for her painting process. “Unstoppable” captures the strength and power of the female as a giver and creator of life. In the triptych “Stories Told Untold I, II, III”, the intense blue color field paired with elements of geometry and lettering create a magnetic push and pull optical field.
Stories Told Untold 1 by Nazia Ejaz
The exhibition also includes works by Romessa Khan, Saulat Ajmal, Wardha Shabbir, Rabia Farooqui and Nurayah Sheikh-nabi that challenge normalized patriarchal dominance using the celestial first woman concept of Eve. They highlight the limitations and struggle of women prevalent in our society, and their exclusion from the mainstream society. The regulative censorship, repressive cultural norms and subjugation of women continues, and female artists are highly aware of their role in redefining these preconceived ideas about womanhood. In this exhibition, the female experience is celebrated as the only meaningful and relevant narrative.
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