ISLAMABAD, Nov 9: Fariya Zaeem’s abstract paintings are an attempt to set free the creativity locked inside every human mind.

An exhibition of her colourful abstract paintings titled “Lyrical waves” will open at Gallery6 on Saturday.

It also reflects on the artistic journey of the artist that began when she was 11-year-old and started painting still life and nature in oil and watercolours. In 1996, she graduated in communication design from the Indus Valley School of Art. This is her third solo exhibition, the first one in Islamabad.

Abstract art uses a visual language of form, colour and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. It also indicates a departure from reality in depiction of imagery in art.

Speaking on the preview day on Friday, Fariya called herself a contemporary expressionist painter.

She said watercolours were her preferred medium and she enjoyed the translucent effects it brought to the substrate. She experimented with wet-on-wet, dry-on-wet, salt technique, shrink-wrap, bubble-wrap, dry flat, round and all kinds of brush strokes and bleeding effects.

She enjoyed the juxtaposition of both watercolours and acrylics to bring paradoxes and contradictions to her work because of the play between transparency and opaqueness and the dark and light. She also introduced pastels in these works that blended well with softness of watercolours and acrylics to create further depth in her works.

The artist explained that she liked working on large-scale sheets because she experienced a sense of freedom and expansion on a wide substrate, where all painting gestures were synchronised.

Fariya believed in the words of Rollo May (an American existential psychologist and the author of a book, Love and Will) that: “It is never bare thought or bare existence that we are aware of. I find myself rather as essentially a unity of emotions, of enjoyment, of hopes, of fears, of regrets, valuations of alternatives, decisions - all of these are subjective reactions to my environment as I am active in my nature.”

Discussing Fariya’s paintings, Dr Arjumand Faisel, the curator of Gallery6, said: “Her paintings are based on lyrical abstraction that primarily conveys a sense of the larger spiritual outlook. Her work is more about a certain temperament, a desire to communicate concepts, thoughts, ideas, and emotions abstractly, beyond merely exploring art principles of composition, tone, value, line, hue, texture, etc.”

“The exhibition will continue daily, including Sundays, till November 24.