The country’s art history, even though it’s a relatively short one, has left some significant landmark works that will always serve as true references to its evolutionary progress. These master works constantly motivate the younger generation, who in turn also produce remarkable works giving continuity to the process. Sadly, it is very rare to find the acknowledged artists’ work on display. With the dearth of public museums, it becomes the task of private galleries to provide such an opportunity.

Karachi’s Canvas Gallery has recently exhibited the works of eminent artists like Abid Aslam, Adeela Suleman, Afshar Malik, Ahmed Ali Manganhar, Akram Dost Baloch, Ali Azmat, Anwar Saeed, Ayaz Jokhio, Belinda Eaton, Imran Qureshi, Jamil Baloch, Jamil Naqsh, Mansoora Hassan, Nahid Raza, Naiza Khan and Quddus Mirza. To savour such a large variety of paintings, sculptures and installations under one roof can be a once in a lifetime experience.

The curator of the exhibition, Sameera Raja, who also has hand-picked each work, expressed her strong desire to periodically display works of artists who have made, and those who are likely to make history.

The set of four captivating acrylic-on-canvas paintings by Azmat portraying the holy book in traditional wrappings bearing symbolic elements like a grenade, barnacles, flowers and an angel in flight, represent the artist’s psychosocial concerns.

The layered impasto of Raza using acrylic on canvas in her signature style is a testament to her painterly acumen. The familiar portrayal of the red light district of Lahore by Hussain, reminiscent of Toulouse Lautrec’s paintings of the life at ‘Moulin Rouge’, has never failed to awe the public for its absolute purity of expression, handled so effortlessly.

The exquisitely fabricated metal installation by Suleman titled, ‘Life form’ stands out from the rest of the exhibits for its organic shape of a backbone, ribs and nerves, suspended in a mid-air.

The digital prints of Saeed titled, ‘Mulaqat 1-4’ are revolutionary in the way the contemporary medium has been utilised combining drama with fantasy and creating parodies of the dull TV talk shows. The gouache on wasli paintings of Jokhio titled, ‘The tailor’ and ‘The barber’, are realistically rendered in the form of diptychs, showing the exterior and the posterior of the portraiture in each.

Eaton’s painting titled, ‘The pomegranate woman’, acrylic on canvas, is a powerful portrait that resonates with experience and spontaneous expression. The exclusive choice of hues deployed by the artist grants her the flexibility to reveal the true spirit of her subjects.

The painting ‘Motherland’ by Dost in mixed media on board, is a work that stands testament to the artist’s versatile ingenuity. Over the years, artists have been mining visual data from their subconscious using paintings and sculpture, which is then carried forward through exhibitions into somebody else’s work owing to the inspiration and motivation that ensues.

Raja says, “It is important to draw the lineage, as opposed to cutting off the roots and claiming to be living in a state of limbo, but actually, no work is created in a limbo. Instead, it has its roots entrenched in something from the past and encapsulates the events and ambience that will never return.”

Every work has a unique but valuable concept for others to behold, and imbibe its creative nuances and find the next level of inventiveness, both in terms of concept and style.