Even today, women in Pakistan are forced to internalise the constant policing of their bodies, lives and freedom, and therefore must resort to spaces that afford privacy and security for them to exist in comfort.

Amber Arifeen’s latest works, displayed at Sanat Initiative, act as similar spaces of refuge, allowing their female dwellers to sprawl across charpais unabashed by those around them.

A graduate of the Wimbledon College of Arts, Amber Arifeen’s newest series of paintings, titled ‘Nature of an Afterthought: A Posteriori’, have emerged from her own time spent in Pakistan. Through each painting, the artist explores the idea of memory and how it can only exist in subjectivity, as it is created through the specific experiences of an individual. However, Arifeen carries forward her pre-existing interest in the South Asian female experience, and uses it as a lens through which subjective consciousness is explored.

Arifeen’s paintings almost immediately captivate the audience as they enter the gallery. Bright hues dance across the canvas in perfect sync, exciting one’s eye to follow along with the painted scene. Though depicting moments of seeming mundanity, the paintings are layered with surrealism, owing to the unusual textures, forms and colours.

That is because memories can never really be an accurate representation of the past. It is subjective to an individual’s experience, and is an amalgamation of what is seen, heard and smelt, thereby producing a transient recollection of what once was, flowing and evolving with time within the person’s mind.

Amber Arifeen takes inspiration from strong, powerful and independent women who lived their life boldly, to explore the nature of subjective memory

Along with her memory, Arifeen also aids her paintings by adopting imagery captured via digital technology, which allows the work to stay grounded in reality, thereby becoming an uneasy yet exciting mesh of what actually was and what was remembered.

While the figures within the paintings are faceless, their attire and surroundings draw much of the viewer’s attention. Beneath the paint, the artist transfers print imagery that recalls her experience while living in Pakistan. The likes of Bob Marley and Nazia Hasan peer through translucent coats of paint and fill the works with warm nostalgia.

However, the chaos of our country doesn’t escape Arifeen’s canvases. News stories, pictures of pain and political unrest as well as national and religious narratives all sit within the painted imagery. While the painted people roam leisurely around their environments, one can see transfer images of the pain and turmoil of Pakistan hiding around in plain sight. Several contradictions exist within Arifeen’s works, many of which are clear examples of the constant policing that make up the Pakistani female experience.

The artist explains that, for this series, she drew inspiration from the lives of three South Asian women: Mah Laqa Bai Chanda, a courtesan, poet and political adviser who was highly regarded within the royal Deccan court in the 9th century; Sara Shagufta, a bold Pakistani poet of the 1980s; and, lastly, Qandeel Baloch, the social media star whose demise is just one of the mounting cases of femicide happening in Pakistan. These women were all strong, powerful and independent, living life boldly, only to be ostracised and, in the case of Baloch, killed in the name of honour.

An added feature to the exhibition was the use of sound. By scanning a QR code, the viewer is invited to listen to a selection of sounds layered together to mimic the ambience within the artwork. It reiterates Arifeen’s exploration of the idea of memory; just as individuals cling on to certain elements from an experience and then piece them together to create a memory in their minds, so too does the artist invite viewers to immerse themselves into these surreal spaces, by providing them an experience that engages both their visual and auditory senses.

Though Arifeen uses specific events from her own life through this vibrant exhibition, the works in many ways are relatable for a larger audience. The scenes are seemingly ordinary which, when coupled with the lack of facial features of the people painted, allow the viewer to imagine similar moments in their own lives, thereby making the works a place of intrigue and interest.

Nature of an Afterthought: A Posteriori, a solo exhibition by Amber Arifeen was displayed at Sanat Initiative from August 24, 2021 until September 6, 2021

Published in Dawn, EOS, September 12th, 2021