G R I D AT I O N
Zahra works at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts in New York. She is also collaborating with the French artist JR and the TED prize on the Inside Out Project, a global art venture. In addition to this, Zahra is interested and involved in promoting and supporting contemporary Pakistani art. Zahra completed her Bachelors in Fine Arts and International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania. She has previously worked at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Curator’s Statement Satrang Gallery is proud to present Gridation, a new exhibition featuring the work of Shahzad Hassan Ghazi, Shiblee Munir, Noureen Rasheed, Fahad Hameed and Afshan Yousaf. These five artists are interested in combining stimulating visual depictions with traditional miniature and print-making to create new dimensions and genres of these artistic techniques. Their work represents technological progress both implicitly and explicitly, and successfully reduces their portrayals into gridations – multi-dimensional planes and lines. Each artist works within individual themes and produces work that is unique, yet there is a common thread that cohesively ties this exhibition together. This connection is visually clear since the pieces feature bold vertical lines and various planes of depiction. However, these bonds are strong, and the motivation behind this collection of work includes investigating man’s relationship with
technology and innovation. Shahzad Hassan Ghazi displays this relationship by painting upon sheets of tin which will rust over time and change form. This unique representation adds an interesting dimension to his subject matter. Ghazi has chosen to portray electrical towers and transformers in his pieces, and he has selected a base that will transform over time, while his paintings remain unchanged. Ghazi is openly analyzing the link that humans have with technology, in particular with communication. Afshan Yousaf’s art examines similar themes. Yousaf has painted in the miniature tradition and unlike Ghazi has presented her pieces upon conventional wasli. However, her subjects are quite unconventional. She portrays chessboards, masks and electrical towers in her work, and in doing so, Yousaf likens life and art to a game of chess – a confined power play. Fahad Hameed is concerned with mankind’s growing reliance upon technological innovation. His work represents man’s disregard for the environmental effects of his actions. Hameed’s work is traditional in its subject matter - a man in a Mughal garb, or the portrayal of a battle scene. However, his methods are unique, he has obscured those traditional scenes with complicated grids made of strong lines and color blocks. Following this vein of exploration, Shiblee Munir has branched off of traditional miniature depiction. He too creates meshes of lines and grids that form visual planes and veneers. These obscure the old fashioned images behind them and even create the illusion of deteriorating background. By utilizing newer methods and reflecting technological transformations in his pieces, the artist is expanding the audience of his work and widening the reach of miniature art. Finally the work of Noureen Rasheed deconstructs miniature painting into its bare essentials – lines and planes. Rasheed’s work is reminiscent of a basic introduction to miniature artwork. The repetition of slender lines creates entire pieces – devoid of colour yet solid and complete. Zahra Khan, Curator
Gridation 21st June to 20th July 2012
Shahzad Hassan Ghazi Born in 1983 Graduated from BNU with Honors Lives and works in Lahore My work explores the passage of relationships which are constantly moving in tandem - parallel to one another. They are continuously broken and rebuilt over time, and reflect one another. The philosophy of inconsistency underlines this process and phenomena. My work is a collection of personal spaces, where humans are living and interacting with each other for every minute of their existence. They live and reveal their troubles in quest of the betterment of their lives.
Urbanscape I, 2011 Enamel on rusted tin 41.7 x 41.7 inches
Shiblee Munir Born in 1982 Graduated from BNU with Distinction Lives and works in Lahore I enjoy working in the technique of miniature painting not simply to continue the historical tradition of my family, but also to revive this generation’s awareness regarding this particular age and era. In this recent body of work I am interested in exploring the idea of miniature paintings through conceptual, formal and social analysis. I am working within the confines of a strict code of visual ethics by painting in the technique of miniature paintings. However, I am eager to identify and discover innovative ways to produce miniature art that is connected to historical visual imagery, but which is unique and accessible in this technological era.
Page 4, 2012 Ink and black pen on wasli 15 x 11 inches
Noureen Rasheed Born in 1983 Graduated from NCA with Honors Lives and works in Lahore My work represents my experience with traditional studies of Miniature paintings. I am interested in exploring the original core of miniature art – the rigid and unbreakable rules, and the visual composition that these create. I particularly enjoy examining the smooth and divided planes of miniature art and the delicate, fine lines that create rich and powerful pieces filled with meaning and movement. This particular body of work is an ode to the constant practice and concentration that miniature art requires. Repetitively drawing thin pencil lines on paper or Siyah Qalam on Wasli can become a source of pleasure and accomplishment. The white lines of thread on the black surface are in high contrast – both in terms of colour and medium, but they convey the concept behind my first lesson of miniature painting.
Siyah Qalam, 2012 Thread on aluminum composite panel 23.6 x 29.9 inches
Fahad Hameed Born in 1984 Graduated from BNU with Honors Lives and works in Lahore Life is not about reality, it is about illusion. Experience is part of human existence. As a new media artist I strive to probe the lines between human and environmental relationships. With our society’s existing dependence on rapidly growing technologies emerges a conflicted relationship between human culture and the concern for nature. This paradoxical bond between human beings and nature poses and solicits the need for a joint co-evolution between the living and budding technological innovations. My artwork began through the observation of these often-strained relationships and came to fruition through the proposition of potential remedies for our constant struggle with co-evolution. I introduce these remedies in the form of interactive art, repetition of lines, objects and mechanical manipulations. This creates illusions. My artwork invites technology, real and imagined, to heighten our awareness of existence. Though I find the development of evolving technology to be alluring, my work invites the viewer to experience a visual.
In Love, 2012 Paint on archival print 26 x 35 inches
Afshan Yousaf Born in 1987 Graduated from NCA Lives and works in Rawalpindi Articulating emotions and feelings through the use of electricity poles and wires symbolizes Infinity. In my work, poles and chessboards illustrate that we are tangled in innumerable situations internally and externally. Our lives are inundated with constant interruptions and the overflow of information – we are permanently occupied. Representations of masks show that we are becoming something we are not. We are living a great masquerade, hiding our feelings and pain behind a decorated and unconcerned mask. My multilayered work covers various aspects of displacement, and is open to interpretation. I view my art as a healer of the irreparable loss that people suffer, personally, and document the many myriads of our infinite existence. Raising the critical question about the traditional form of miniature and how to position this historically embedded technique in a wider global contemporary context has been challenging, but has also been an important milestone for me. My work has rapidly progressed and is currently a combination of contemporary miniature painting, drawing, splashes and washes in a technique that I have developed over the past year.
Closed alley, 2012 Gad rang on wasli 16 x 8 inches
Shahzad Hassan Ghazi Urbanscape I, 2011 Enamel on rusted tin 41.7 x 41.7 inches
Urbanscape II-a, b, c, d, e, 2011 Pen and ink on silver coated tin sheet 18 x 42 inches
Urbanscape lll, 2011 Enamel on rusted tin 17.7 x 23.6 inches
Urbanscape VI, 2011 Enamel on rusted tin 17.7 x 23.6 inches
Untitled, 2012 Enamel on rusted tin 17.7 x 23.6 inches
Untitled, 2012 Enamel on rusted tin 17.7 x 23.6 inches
Shiblee Munir Page 1, 2012 Ink and black pen on wasli 15 x 11 inches
Page 2, 2012 Gad rang, ink and gold on wasli 15 x 11 inches
Page 3, 2012 Ink, gold and black pen on wasli 15 x 11 inches
Page 4, 2012 Ink and black pen on wasli 15 x 11 inches
Page 5, 2012 Ink, gold and black pen on wasli 15 x 11 inches
Page 7, 2012 Ink, gold and black pen on wasli 15 x 11 inches
Page 8, 2012 Ink, gold and black pen on wasli 15 x 11 inches
Page 9, 2012 Black pen and c. type print on archival paper 30 x 20 inches
Noureen Rasheed Neem Rang, 2012 Thread on aluminium composite panel 35.8 x 47.6 inches
Siyah Qalam 1, 2012 Thread on aluminum composite panel 23.6 x 29.9 inches
Siyah Qalam 2, 2012 Thread on aluminum composite panel 23.6 x 29.9 inches
Siyah Qalam 3, 2012 Thread on aluminum composite panel 23.6 x 29.9 inches
Siyah Qalam 4, 2012 Thread on aluminum composite panel 23.6 x 29.9 inches
Fahad Hameed Point to Be Noted Paint on archival print 15 x 16.9 inches
Impression, 2012 Paint and gold leaf on archival print 15 x 17 inches
In Love, 2012 Paint on archival print 26 x 35 inches
Another Way, 2012 Paint and gold leaf on archival print 26 x 35 inches
Neo Kingdom, 2012 Paint and gold leaf on archival print 29.9 x 29.9 inches
Line of Control, 2012 Paint on archival print 35 x 45.5 inches
Untitled King Shah Jehan 1, 2012 C type print on archival paper 76 x 50 cm
Untitled King Shah Jehan 2, 2012 C type print on archival paper 76 x 50 cm
Afshan Yousaf Closed alley, 2012 Gad rang on wasli 16 x 8 inches
Gyre, 2011 siyah qalam and gad rang 18 x 9 inches
Infinity, 2011 Gad rang on wasli 18 x 9 inches
Predictions, 2012 Gad rang on wasli 16 x 9 inches
Untitled, 2012 Mix media 18 x 9 inches
I’d like to commend the curator, Zahra Khan, for the fascinating selection of art she has brought together in this exhibition. And I’d also like to applaud Asma Khan and the Serena Hotel for staging this series of shows, which have contributed so much Islamabad’s art scene in the past few months. The title of today’s exhibition, “Gridation,” brings to my mind two competing ideas. First, there’s the idea of the grid, which we see played out in the lines and planes that are the common themes of most of these works. Grids imply order, structure, and logic; grids imply technological design and innovation, as in electrical grids (uppermost in everyone’s mind these days); and grids also suggest rigidity, imprisonment, and entrapment. There is a tension in these works between structure and imprisonment, and they reflect on the way technology defines our modern life in both good and bad ways. These for me are things that for me are encapsulated in the idea and the pattern of the grid. But the word “gridation” also suggest gradation, a very different concept of one thing flowing into the next in a gradual metamorphosis. A rainbow is gradated color, for example. Red eventually becomes purple, and then blue, and then its complement, green, and then on around to red again. But gradation is not only visual. It also describes the basic flow of time. History is not grid-like, but gradated, a process of gradual
change. Things become their opposite and then eventually flow back again to an original state. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. So I find fascinating that in the use of the traditional techniques and motifs of miniaturism, we see a reflection of the gradation of time. The past is present, but has also morphed into something quite different. And similarly the future holds the promise of both continuity with and change from today. So the interplay of gradation with grid inspires thoughts about – what? The imprisonment of the past? Or our efforts to impose structure on change? I’ll leave you to answer this question as you look at and enjoy these works this evening. Thanks very much. Marilyn Wyatt is the wife of the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan and a fan of the country’s contemporary art scene.
Printed at PanGraphics (Pvt) Ltd., Islamabad