Windows to an inner world of perception, Moeen Faruqi’s drawings exhibited recently at the gallery of the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, Karachi, engaged us as much, if not more, in ‘finished’ paintings by many artists. Papers out of the artist’s sketchbooks, and other drawings done randomly on used paper were shown as a collective narrative; significant due to the lack of ‘other’ layers such as the framing, these pages with ring binder perforations are shown as a part of the page.

The informality of private sketchbooks was transferred to the gallery in an equally informal manner; making valuable connections of the artist’s larger context, as they informed or resided far from the content of his more formal work. As viewers, we got to think about these proximities, or the lack of. These were critical creative aspects and distances which we as writers, artists, curators, and students do not allow ourselves to engage with as an end in itself.

Drawings, doodles and text on used paper and in sketchbooks become complete pictures and windows to intuitive mark making

Unframed and simply pinned to the wall, there is a curatorial layer which initiates and thus directs us to enter the artistic content in a particular way. The curator creates this important ‘outer’ structure, and provides a considered space to read the work as well as to reflect on the creative form of the curatorial narrative. Faruqi’s work is part of an initiative by artist Seher Naveed, to address drawings as complete works, and to locate the source of artists’ works through their sketchbooks. The project ‘Drawing Document’ by Naveed will involve a series of such exposes of drawings by different artists chosen to be compiled in a publication with critique and discussion on the nature of work, and a collective document to study processes of mark making and notes that precede the more formal works. Valuable, Naveed says, as a study aid, it seems to be the kind of initiative that can intervene positively in the heavily consumer and market-oriented art milieu, where discussion is peripheral and superficial, if there at all.

The work in the current show seems to get to the core of Faruqi’s narrative. For one, each page has a presence that opens the viewer to the uncertainties of his line, an interrupted line, and a half word or thought doodled spontaneously, which was initially meant to remain private. Once up on the walls of the gallery, this vulnerability suddenly transforms into a body of engaged aesthetics in a public space. Drawn thoughts, let’s say, these black and white drawings are direct, and in their bareness, one can see many aspects of the artist’s larger coloured paintings, but without the completeness, which can at times conceal or mask the ‘real’ story.

There is recurring imagery like that of the fish, and recognisable characters that form Faruqi’s visual stories. He situates them in lived urban spaces which reflect their disquiet unease with their environment. It is as if the author narrates the same story, event or dream over and over again, and yet each page tells you one aspect of it. It is told with a different emphasis, each time unable to be completed; unresolved, but convincing, it is the humble line, a doodle, a word. The imagery that is created in words or visuals comes from a source that may have no distinction between art and non-art. The process of telling and listening, of writing and reading is closely interwoven here as the author, the story-teller, and the artist become one.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine May 15th, 2016