KARACHI: Fluidity in art is best expressed when artists feel at their uninhibited best. This makes them follow their imagination like moth to flame. Sometimes imagination leads them into uncharted territories in a serendipitous way and on occasion they mould their imagination as per their whims (the latter is not always advisable unless you are a Picasso or a Dali). An intriguing two-person show titled Floating Worlds curated by Aasim Akhtar began at the Koel Art Gallery on Monday.
The standout feature of the exhibition is the manner in which the two artists — Rakhshanda Atawar and Shahida Mansoor — have drawn the line between fancy and imagination. It seems their artworks are the result of the maxim ‘go with the flow’. Instead of letting inks, dyes or woodblock dictate terms to them. It seems they have submitted to that fine, fine frenzy that some of us call creativity. The result is worth noticing.
Ms Mansoor explores space, not in the conventional sense though. She may shy away from revealing where the visual richness in her artworks stem from, but the viewer can readily detect the age-old philosophical question that the artist is trying to raise through her exhibits. It is to do with existence. No, she is not stirring a debate whether existence precedes essence or otherwise, rather ‘New Spirit, New Space’ (woodblock print) signifies a refreshing approach to unravelling the mystique surrounding existence. By the way, the visuals that the viewer gets to see as a consequence of that are quite astounding. The question might sound different with ‘Scent of Butterfly Dreams Soaking the Edges of Spaces’. It is actually not.
Rakhshanda Atawar does wonders with inks. It is difficult to classify her work despite the fact that critics have termed it expressionistic.
Ms Atawar is one of those artists for whom the medium takes precedence over the message. Mixing inks means a larger number of printed colours, hence the artist’s attempt at deciphering patterns within patterns. These are not just shapes and splotches of colour that she’s immersed in; it’s a prototype (of life) that she is trying to examine through her creative endeavours.
The exhibition will continue till Sept 13.
