ISLAMABAD: Satrang Gallery on Wednesday opened its doors toLife In A Play, a two-person show depicting works that narrate unique moments from the lives of different characters.

Paintings made by Minaa Mohsin and Farazeh Syed were exhibited.

“These two brilliant painters have each created vibrant scenes for audiences and viewers to sink into. These vignettes or slices of life are like the moving parts of a play, at times absurd, at others dramatic, sometimes contradictory, and coming together to create a complete journey,” said the curator of the show Zahra Khan on the opening day.

The title of the exhibition references Shakespeare’s often quoted comparison of the stages of life to the acts of a play. Sometimes playfully depicted and framed, sometimes more intense, these paintings narrate the story of each character.

Farazeh Syed is a Lahore-based artist who after completing two years of the fundamental programme at the National College of Arts (NCA), went on to acquire a diploma in printmaking at Gandhara Art School, Islamabad. Inspired by the mentor-apprentice relationship, she then trained with renowned painter Iqbal Hussain for 15 years. She completed her masters with honours in visual arts from the NCA in 2015.

“The female body is conventionally perceived as mysterious, an ‘object’ of pleasure, and a marker of the ‘weaker’ gender. In the history of the image too, women have historically been ‘imagined’, objectified, and stereotyped as the other: woman is present but always as a symbolic metaphor for sensuality, eroticism and passivity and the narrative is always that of the dominant male. Such imagery serves to represent, and in fact, reinforce gender-based power ideologies. To me, the female body signifies lived experience and an active, living entity that experiences, expresses, and responds.

“My thematic concern is to de-objectify and deconstruct myths about the female body and sexuality, hence, conveying its dynamism, autonomy, emotionality, imperfection and fallibility,” she told visitors.

Pakistani American painter, Minaa Mohsin, received her BFA in painting from NCA, Lahore and MFA in painting and drawing from Pratt Institute, New York in 2016. She currently divides her time between Lahore and Brooklyn and is the co-founder of Partner Painters in Lahore.

She uses the memory of her parents’ house, where she was raised, to explore the realm of the aspiring bourgeoisie. “Food plays the role of the nucleus bringing people together. It forms the basis of all entertainment at home and also plays a role outside of it. Depicted food items, often ignored but ubiquitous in our daily lives, hold tremendous sentimental value, and become cherished symbols of celebration of one’s life in Pakistan. The paintings glorify common decorative motifs, local cuisine, and baked goods. They humorously speak about domesticity and over-consumption, thus, help animate our personal mythologies that begin and end with consuming food,” she said.

Published in Dawn, October 28th, 2021