KARACHI: An exhibition of drawings and paintings of eminent artist Feica titled Inextricable Love opened at the Alliance Francaise de Karachi on Saturday.

Feica is one of the country’s leading cartoonists. But he is also a painter of high merit. The remarkable thing about this particular aspect of his creative self is that his drawings and paintings never get eclipsed, or slowed down, by the cartoon-making that he does on a daily basis.

He is a prolific and top-notch artist (a fact that galleries conveniently ignore) for whom life and art are two sides of the same coin. He should exhibit his work more often because it’s a lesson for budding artists in how one should live and breathe art.

Feica is an extrovert, which can be understood by seeing his artworks. He is never short of expression therefore he turns the physical into the cerebral. For him, human bodies, or the human figure, symbolise society’s movement. If the characters that he draws or paints come across as lackadaisical, then society is in laidback mode. If they look animated, society is on the go. The artist brings it all under the umbrella of ‘love’. What kind of love, you might ask. Answer: inextricable love, the kind of love that human beings find difficult to disentangle themselves from. This has both positive and negative connotations — sometimes love can be self-destructive, but most of the time it is an invigorating experience.

Then there is the theme of power on display in the show (men with their hands tied behind their back or doubled up with burden and pain). It is something that modern-day artists can’t afford to ignore. Feica uses quite a few symbols, including the equestrian symbol, to touch upon that subject which, by the way, is not without human figures. The technique creates a symbiosis that works on many levels — society, government, relationships, etc. The artist conveys his thoughts convincingly because his lines and strokes are just as strong and meaningful as his ideas.

The exhibition will run until April 28.

Published in Dawn, April 23rd, 2017