Or Something Like It
Or Something Like It Zahra Khan Curator
Amra Khan | Saud Baloch | Suleman Khilji | Maria Khan Nazir Hunzai | Waqas Anees | Zara Asgher Satrang Gallery is proud to present Or Something Like It, a drawing and sculpture exhibition showcasing artworks by seven talented draftsmen. The exhibition re-examines a basic art form and explores the power and control of an artist. It showcases artists who challenge the idea of artistic limitations via medium. They create personal alternate universes viewed through unique lenses in order to analyze aspects of life, human relationships, gender inequalities, and technological advancements. For the most part, these seven artists work within the boundaries of traditional drawing – mark making via pencils, ink, and pastels on paper; demonstrating the power of graphite, while enhancing their work with additional mediums and vivid spurts of colour. Distorted reality and parallel universes feature prominently in the work of Maria Khan and Suleman Khilji. Maria’s art is developed through her bold and swift marks and the bright patches of colour that she skillfully employs. The fragmented and raw subjects that she portrays could easily reside in the dream-like disjointed reality that exists in the work of Suleman. Like Maria, Suleman also draws out a raw passion in his art. His pieces portray confusing scenes of
wilderness, faceless individuals and constant movement. They explore mythical landscapes and childhood memories, and the complicated relationship between past, present and future; the known and unknown; seen and unseen. Suleman and Maria are such masters of their craft that their creations seem to move past their control and the viewer is trapped within the worlds they have created. Nazir Hunzai and Zara Asgher choose to alter the responses of their viewers by limiting and modifying the information that they provide. Zara removes the unique humanity of her subjects, while Nazir breathes a new life into his pieces. Zara creates pieces which depict cloth covered individuals, making the individual into an object, and turning the cloth covering with its folds, texture and layers into the most important part of her piece. Nazir creates sculptures and drawings out of found objects; by creating a new purpose and new role for those objects, he re-makes them and challenges ideas of a single lifetime of an artwork. Artists like Amra Khan, Waqas Anees and Saud Baloch also represent control by presenting its antithesis, a lack of control. Through more traditional albeit violent means, Amra explores gender by depicting human conflict. Her pieces portray visible tension, subversive postures and sexual identity, as she explores unexpressed sentiments and the danger of complacency. Waqas Anees also works within the realm of dominance, but his is a more metaphorical exploration, as he draws ships on sea, engulfed in winds and storms, as a demonstration of the limits of man’s strength, and control. Saud Baloch’s pieces are indicative of conquest, the erosion of culture and identities. His drawings and sculptures work on multiple levels and by alternatingly portraying the collective and the individual, he emphasizes the weakness of man and his ultimate defeat.
Amra Khan Amra Khan (b.1984) lives and works in Lahore. She graduated from National College of Arts (NCA), Lahore with a Distinction in Painting in 2008. She completed a Masters in Visual Arts from NCA, Lahore in 2012, and studied at École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts (ENSBA) Paris, France for a semester in 2010- 2011. Amra has exhibited her work nationally and internationally at Canvas Art Gallery, Koel Art Gallery, Alhamra Art Gallery, Zahoor-ul-Akhlaq Gallery, Rohtas II, Nairang Gallery, Satrang Gallery, Karachi Arts Council, Galerie Sauvaget, Gallery Gauche, École Nationale Supérieure des BeauxArts. She works in several mediums including oils, acrylics, miniature art, sculptures and video installations. This is her second exhibition at Satrang Gallery. My art tends to work around having two poles and different ideas or personalities living in the same body, conflicting gender, power and identity. I work to speak through and incite the observer to question tangibility. The conflict is always within the mind, within the body and the only thing keeping control and holding it all together is the outline, the outer skin, the persona, the character we stage for others. Controlling all those unexpressed, unspoken, emotions, desires, thoughts, ideas and strokes bottled up inside. If only life can be accepted with all its stains, dabs and spills, for they hold more emotion than the plain white paper.
The Bucket, 2009-10 Ink, tea, coffee on paper 30x20 inches
Saud Baloch Saud Baloch (b.1982) lives and works in Lahore. Saud graduated from the National College of Arts (NCA), Lahore in 2012 with a Distinction in Sculpture. Saud has exhibited his work at Alhamra Art Gallery, Zahoorul-Haq Art Gallery, the Artist Society, Quetta Arts Council and University of Balochistan. He prefers using in drawing, painting, printmaking and design to create his artworks. This is the first time he is exhibiting at Satrang Gallery. I am interested in the artistic subject, which matters to me more than materials. I believe that anything can be re-deployed to create work that explores and bears witness to such enduring themes as: states of uncertainty and irresolution; marginalization and silencing; the erosion of culture and identities; and the weight of the pressures that we bear daily, which may undermine our sense of balance. All of these influence my work. In the works displayed in this exhibition I am interested in exploring natural symbolism. I believe that the material world can speak with grace to us about matters of contemporary concern – social, political, and cultural – in relation to which we have lost our bearings, or about which we remain silent. Scale is also current point of exploration and experimentation in my work.
Sustained, 2013 Latex and fabric 36x24x18 inches
Suleman Aqeel Khilji Suleman Aqeel Khilji (b. 1988) lives and works in Lahore. Suleman graduated from the National College of Arts (NCA), Lahore with a Distinction in Painting in 2011. He currently teaches at City School. Suleman has been awarded the medal for outstanding achievement in 2010. He has Suleman has exhibited nationally and internationally at the Drawing Room Gallery, Canvas Art Gallery, Commune Art Gallery, Alhamra Art Gallery, Zahoor-ul-Ikhlaq Art Gallery, Ecole de Beaux Arts and Meier Art Gallery. Suleman enjoys creating art through printmaking, drawing, sculpture, design and dramatics. This is the first time he is exhibiting at Satrang Gallery. I loved it when my grandfather used to tell tales that were actually myths. They took decades to evolve and there were lessons in those tales that were very subtle and at the same time had a greater meaning - another point of view that exists in my work. It is a conversation between the medium and me, in search of light complementing the dark as there is harmony in the dark ambiance. It is really natural how an image starts to generate itself through time and different layers time by time, and suddenly it emerges from the landscape of peace and solitude that one needs, like the storm that fathoms into the sea and a silence is felt in the figures. Figures that appear to contradict each other’s presence, yet at the same time having a dialogue that never ends, meeting at a point in time. Striving to a state of uncertainty and an uneasiness that remains in the mind of the viewer. This makes the image more open yet unsettling in a certain way. Each work is an understanding of present time and the tale that follows.
In the Praise of Idleness, 2012 Graphite, ink and charcoal on morroco sheet 45 x 95 inches
Maria Khan Born in 1986, living and works in Lahore. Maria completed her Masters in Visual Arts from the National College of Arts (NCA), Lahore, with a Distinction in Studio Practice in 2011. She was awarded the Best Young Artist Prize in 2010 and 2012 by the Punjab Arts Council. She has exhibited her artwork in various group shows, and works primarily in oil painting and drawing. This is the first time she is exhibiting at Satrang Gallery. My work revolves around the state of being deformed. It portrays larger than life, monstrous characters, bigbosomed mature women of the night who sit comfortably in their piles of corpulent flesh and fancy clothes - every smile showing off a beautifully crooked set of teeth. A childlike ribbon, a golden tooth, pet birds…but something is delightfully wrong about them. My work touches a subject, which is borderline feminist.
Garden of Tenderness, 2013 Graphite and charcoal on paper 60 x 48 inches
Nazir Ahmed Nazir Ahmad (b. 1988), lives and works in Islamabad. Nazir graduated from the National College of Arts (NCA), Islamabad with a Distinction in Sculpture in 2011. He is currently teaching at NCA Islamabad. Nazir has participated in exhibitions at Gallery 6, Alhamra Art Gallery, Zahoor-ul-Haq Art Gallery, National Art Gallery and Indus Valley Art Gallery. Nazir has assisted reputed artist Hamra Abbas in several projects including ‘Please don’t step’, ‘Women in Black’, ‘Buraq’, and ‘It’s a Boy’. His preferred mediums include drawing, painting, miniature art, character drawing and puppet making. This is the first time he is exhibiting at Satrang Gallery. The form in my recent work is heavily dependent on the found objects in vintage markets, including stuffed toys, puppets, bags, and shoes, where they arrive, stuffed in boxes, ready to be sold. The objects bring with them, in little mended patches and marks the affiliations and the attachments they have left behind - they almost become human. These forms, when Intentionally bought in the other space, are bought with all those marks and affiliations that they carry within themselves from one place to the next. These lifeless objects, in my drawings and forms come to life as they dissect the nature of attachments, detachments, relationships, and distance in the context of the environment that I inhabit.
Untitled, 2012 Painted silicon and feathers 12 x 4 x 4 inches
Waqas Anees Waqas Anees (b. 1988) lives and works in Lahore. He graduated from Beacon House University in Visual Arts in 2011. He is currently teaching at Lahore Grammar School and continuing to make art. Waqas has participated in several workshops and his artwork has been exhibited at a number of galleries, including Alhamra Art Gallery, Beacon House Art Gallery, NHQ art Gallery and the Drawing Room Art Gallery. This is the first time he is exhibiting at Satrang Gallery. The technological advancement; developing the greater future, but for who? In all this race mankind is left behind emerging as fossils.
Fossil, 2013 Print on nipali paper 7.6 x 11.5 inches
Zara Asgher Zara Asgher (b.1989) lives and works in Lahore. She graduated from the National College of Art (NCA), Lahore with a Bachelors in Print Making in 2012. She currently teaches at NCA and continues to create artwork. Zara has been awarded several prizes including the Award for the 10 Best Works of the Exhibition from the Lahore Arts Council. She has exhibited her work at Nairang Gallery and the NCA. This is the first time she is exhibiting at Satrang Gallery. My fascination lies in exploring the twists and turns of folds of drapery exposed to a single source of strong light. Although the subjects wrapped within them appear at ease and quite unaware of themselves being viewed by a third party i.e. the viewer, the rendering of the drapery, however, appears otherwise. The imagery then turns almost into a landscape of fabric where the wavering forms become nearly distorted. Here comes in the coexistence of feelings of comfort and discomfort where there is an aura of warmth yet the texture of the binding, animal-like texture appears coarse, almost fierce. My choice of medium is primarily charcoal and it is the intensity of black that it offers that draws me towards it. The immediacy and the directness of application of this medium to the smooth surface of paper or canvas, provides a thrilling, almost delectable process of work for me.
Untitled, 2013 Charcoal on paper 30 x 40 inches
Satrang Gallery Asma Rashid Khan- Director Mamoona Riaz- Gallery Assistant Sahyr Sayed- Gallery Assistant
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