Last Sunday a new art gallery called Spaces sprung up like ripened corn in the beleaguered city of Karachi. It was a welcome bloom in the brickwork. It is tucked away in old Clifton, a part of the landscape that in the days of the Raj was regarded by the empire builders as exclusive. The left behind a legacy of order, discipline and magnificent buildings among which were those fin de siecle testimonials in terracotta and red sandstone.

The snorting irony is that while a large chunk of the metropolis has been vandalised by a tribe of indiscriminate builders who have unleashed a rash of highly coagulated communal troughs, old Clifton still remains relatively uncluttered. It was therefore quite appropriate for the curator of the gallery, Zainab Jafri, to inaugurate the premises with an exhibition devoted to…Urban Spaces.

There is something refreshing about looking at the works of fresh art graduates who are exhibiting before the public for the first time. There is a bracing innocence about their compositions which is devoid of spoof and pastiche. The six canvases of Syed Ahmad Tahir and the 12 canvases of Anum Ather Jamal are a case in point. Both artists are graduates of the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture. And both have focused on themes that are enjoined through some sort of cultural osmosis.

The common element or link is … habitation. In Tahir’s case the buildings provide a kind of colourful fantasy world — a place to escape to, temporarily, of course, before the bomb blasts and the ethnic killings, before judges and social workers are blown up and lawyers kidnapped.

In Jamal’s case there is an expression of regret at the constant erosion taking place in buildings in an overcrowded society, due to regular travelling, shifting from apartment to apartment and the general movement of societies. This results in fragmentation, in the things that are left behind, things like facades, broken balconies and shorn water and drainage pipes. A forgotten era that is teetering on the edge of extinction.

Tahir is a soft-spoken, amiable person whose humility is contagious. He is the kind of carnivore who wouldn’t hurt a fly. He is also something of an escapist who makes brief excursions into a world of fantasy. His work is confident and imposing. All his compositions, whether acrylic on canvas or pen on paper, command a second look. I have never before seen anything quite like his piece de resistance ‘Rainbow Town’ — a long kaleidoscopic skyline of buildings each distinct and identifiable, where pink and orange are the dominant colours.

The rest of his compositions are part of the same family, expressive, detailed and concentrated riots of colour. By contrast Jamal’s compositions in graphite on board or pen and graphite on paper are intense, compact and full of industrial minutiae. Some of her work in coloured pencil is also quite impressive. In spite of the wealth of detail the objects that form the pictures are distinct and exclusive.

Her work is quite special and will attract the attention of architects and also art teachers. I was most impressed by her ‘Chaotic remains’ which tells the story of the gradual industrial erosion of an era when space was not at a premium and people were still gainfully employed. But as the Greek philosopher Heraclitus once wrote, you can never step into the same river … twice.