Lahore’s Rohtas Gallery recently treated viewers to a rather unusual solo show both in terms of display and content. On entering the gallery, one saw a diagonally placed improvised cement wall cutting the space quite dramatically, and this served as the backdrop for artist Risham Syed’s small miniature-sized acrylic paintings on canvas.

The gaunt but artistically finished grey cement wall, and the smart overhead lights that lit up each of the seven tiny but meticulously painted canvases made an impact that was extraordinary. Syed’s paintings, too, displayed a change from her works in the recent past which relied more on mixed-media to convey her often socially or politically relevant messages.

In her current solo endeavour, she has reverted to her much earlier style of detailed handiwork, and her acrylic paintings have the quality of super realism, so that the visuals almost appear as photographs from a distance. Titled, ‘Lahore 2010’, the artist has selected and photographed views of typical urban houses that one sees in popular housing schemes catering to the upper or middleclass people and has used these images to compose her paintings.

To explain the idea behind the selection of this subject, it would be best to quote Syed herself: “Homes are a reflection of one’s ideas/ideals about life. I use homes as a metaphor of our worldview. They are also reflective of our collective psyche that manifests itself in the form of white houses, or Mughal jharokas or Swati carvings—I’ve been intrigued by the idea and used ‘ideal homes’ or ‘trendy homes’ in my work to comment on the crossroads we are in history.”

Syed, however, chooses to focus on looking at the back walls of houses rather than their more glamorous facades. In doing so, she brings into focus the rather dismal aesthetics that are common to the back views of most homes being constructed in the city. This also has a symbolic connotation in which one is led into contemplating about how people almost unwittingly maintain duplicity of appearance and also about the lack of imagination in the planning and construction of living abodes.

Facades, nonetheless, are focused upon to impress visitors and it is perhaps assumed that no one would bother to focus at the back of the house. Who would have thought that an artist would actually go through the trouble of meticulously rendering the plain and gaunt-looking details typical to such a vantage point?

Thus, one sees the similarities in character that are inherent in the back views of various homes: blackened side walls, simple spiral stairways made of iron, and generally plain white, black or grey cement walls that are mostly blank and appear like characterless monoliths. Even those views that have a few doors or windows are aesthetically unremarkable and reflect the fact that they are not meant for viewing.

As one watches the tiny paintings with a sense of awe at the painterly skill of the artist and her ability to imbue such an unattractive theme with such sensitivity, a mood of somber contemplation is also invoked. The message of the artist is brought home, both literally, and symbolically.