It isn’t easy to describe the paintings by Muhammad Ali which are currently adorning the walls of Canvas Gallery, Karachi. Some visitors might be a little put off with the symbolism, or might find the themes a little disturbing. Others might be entranced by the creativity. But nobody could possibly deny that they are absolutely compelling. So if you haven’t yet seen them, stir your stumps and take a peek. You won’t be disappointed. The pictures are not just jolly good portraits. Each vignette is also loaded with a hidden meaning which teases the viewer’s mind and lets his imagination run riot.

After reading the artist’s statement three points stick out like a sore thumb. The painter is obviously familiar with Albert Camus’ masterpiece ‘The myth of Sisyphus’ and at some time in his life was tarred with the existentialist brush which permeated the Parisian left bank after the Second World War. All the personalities that appear in the 11 paintings, including the late Osama bin Laden,  are local subjects. And the current exhibition entitled, ‘Let Them Eat Butterflies’ is not about the celebrities that pop up in the pictures.

The paintings are a commentary on the kind of world we currently live in — a world permeated by conspicuous consumption, and the stresses and strains of a bourgeois culture dominated by media puppeteers who pull the strings that make the marionettes dance. The style that has been adopted at times conforms to the early Christian or Renaissance portrait style.

The most enigmatic piece of them all is a rather large painting of a woman (Iraj Manzoor) who is admonishing four creatures with the bodies of men and the craniums, beaks and denture pink floppy double chins of poultry cocks. The fifth, of indeterminate breed, has hair which looks rather like a chambermaid’s mop. On the surface it looks like a typical female entrepreneur who had just discovered that one of her henpecked employees has been caught with his fingers in the till. If you scratch below the surface it looks as if the cocks are being rebuked for fertilising a proletariat condemned to a life of sacrifice from the moment they are born. Or is it a commentary on the way the masses are being manipulated by the leaders?

The portrait of a smiling Osama bin Laden as a mermaid has an obvious manufactured spontaneity. The inclusion of angels above and below, which lachrymose Renaissance artists were inordinately fond of producing, suggested the Al-Qaeda leader was content in his final resting place and made frequent excursions to the kingdom of Father Neptune. A stern looking Frieha Altaf appears in a burgundy sari. But heck, her hairdresser has transformed her into the Medusa of Greek mythology; without the eye that flashes a green laser beam that turns into stone whoever gazed at her. The snakes on her head exude a silky menace.

In one composition four men with faces covered by cloth masks hustle Tapu Javeri. In another Abbas Jafri has a bite at a large cheeseburger. And in a third Rohail Pirzada is holding the severed head of a man. It is not very clear why Mohsin Saeed’s face is registering a freshly minted terror, unless the wriggly creature in the background happens to be a giant octopus. A Bolshi-looking Ali Salim (whom audiences will recognise as Begum Nawazish) makes a good revolutionary. Tucked away in a corner are three Reubenesque nudes huddled together. And close by in a rather macabre English breakfast is the beautiful Meera, trapped from behind in a traditional jiu jitsu grip. However, the assailant’s face is smudged by a spattering of fried egg, sliced tomatoes, a blob of hash browns and a couple of sausages.

The picture which I find most riveting is ‘From dust’, which features a hirsute Amir Zaib Khan reclining in a field of flowers. The obsession with detail is most riveting. At the time of writing I was told that 10 of the 11 canvases that were exhibited had been sold. I am not at all surprised. Mohammed Ali paints the stuff of dreams.