Written by: Nayha Jehangir Khan
Posted on: June 17, 2020 | 
Out of My Dreams-5 by Faiza Butt
As the uncertainty of the pandemic continues to keep us in an indefinite state of lockdown, our interaction with art is changing. Many small galleries in London are opening up this week, and inviting guests to virtually tour their exhibitions. The international art scene is starting to become locally accessible to Pakistanis through such virtual experiences, and this is a very good thing.
The Grosvenor Gallery, located in London, has a reputation for collaborating and showcasing artists from South Asia. Recently, they hosted a Zoom Artist Talk for their latest exhibition 'Form & Figure: Bodies of Art', showcasing the works of Faiza Butt, Ali Kazim, and Salman Toor. It is curated by Dr. Zehra Jumabhoy, an art critic and art historian with a focus on contemporary South Asian art. Each of these artists has a long-standing relationship with representational and figuration in painting, and their work can be viewed online on the gallery’s website.
Although each artist is in a different country, they were exhibiting in an intimate homecoming of contemporaries. The curator began with an introduction, leading into a twenty-minute talk by each artist. Dr. Jumabhoy highlighted how the exhibition “negotiates the tension between figuration, form, and abstraction in contemporary Pakistani art”, that remains a controversial practice for Muslim representation.
The alma mater of Butt and Kazim is the National College of Arts (NCA) in Lahore, and both of them also got their masters from The Slade School of Fine Arts in London. Toor, originally from Lahore as well, completed his masters from The Pratt Institute, New York City. Butt spoke first, discussing the symbolism and image-making process of her work. She touched on the influence of journalistic photography, and the active use of embroidery inspired craftsmanship in her works.
Her work, Getting Out of My Dreams-5 has many popular culture references and whimsically painted objects, framing her hyper-realistic renditions of men. Playful and disarmed, the image of masculinity is flipped on its head to feel cute and animated. The seamless mark-making transitions feel digital, but are done by hand.
Butt rejects the use of female models as a form of resistance to typically seen subject matter dictated by the male gaze. She re-invites romantic ideals found in western art, and renews them with very recognizably Pashtun male subjects. Her relationship to a traditional painting practice developed while she was living in Pakistan.
Her work now draws on modern collage-like compositions, which don’t compromise on realistic painting techniques. The pointillist mark-making is abstract, but intensely precise and calculated in its storytelling. Butt’s visual vocabulary draws on her daily life, socio-economic politics, gender dynamics, and kitsch culture, drafting a novella open to multiple interpretations by the viewer.
Dr. Jumabhoy introduced Toor as the youngest artist out of the trio, and expressed her admiration and interest in the painting Takeaway. The artist explained his painting journey as something that went from academic to personal. His studio practice was now more immediate and intuitive as compared to his previous works, and he is immersed in his current environment living in Brooklyn, New York.
The Takeaway by Salman Toor
The two paintings chosen for the show had distinctively different emotive landscapes. The painting Green Group, shows bodies gathering to represent a space, time, or moment that feels non-communicative. Takeaway has space to breathe, even though it is simply a portrait of two people in a small TV lounge. Toor has been known to create large-scale, complex, figurative works that blend urban freedom with subversive resistance to the classical aristocracy. With gymnastic agility, Toor paints stories of people watching interchangeably as both an outsider and insider to his subjects.
Kazim is an artist and art educator, whose work has deep non-representational explorations in the form of landscapes. The portraits included in the show are from his Man and Woman of Faith series, showing figures that Kazim found in his surroundings in Lahore. The lightly rendered strokes create a densely textured layer of skin, that is contrasted with an opaque highly pigmented or neutral background, leaving the figure in focus. Kazim has been revisiting historical heritage sites that led him into creating non-representational bodies of work.
Untitled (Man of Faith Series)
He draws linkages between sculptural portraiture that are reminiscent of an alchemist of earthly elements. His works are meant to be a process of capturing people’s likeness beyond figuration. Kazim draws influence from the Indus Valley Civilization, and referential motifs from the Bengal School style that was thriving during the British Raj over the Subcontinent. He recalls his visits to Lahore Museum as a student at NCA, looking for indigenous inspiration for his painting practice. The pigmented water colour background and sculptural portraits originated from that time in the artist’s life, and has evolved into the works seen today. Kazim recalls his interest in Gandharan sculptures as another visual anchor in his work, and the identities of his subjects are unmistakably of South Asian lineage. He further touched on his contemplations on the poetry of Sufi Fariduddin Attar, that lead to creating a seven-foot mural titled, The Conference of the Birds.
Conference of the Birds by Ali Kazim
Attendees tuned in from far-reaching regions for the talk, such as Australia and Indonesia. With over twenty participants, people could see the artists, and experience a live guided tour of the gallery. The opening was a virtual reception enjoyed comfortably through smartphones and laptops. In a face-to-face video chat format, the guests could participate directly in an in-depth discussion that would have been unimaginable in an offline exhibition.
Virtual guests included Salima Hashmi, who said, “There is an alignment with aspirations of the human condition to be explored and celebrated. While we are sitting in fear and loneliness, each of these artists shows a tremendous reaffirmation of life.”
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