Through the Looking Glass
Satrang Gallery is an initiative of Serena Hotels Pakistan to encourage and promote talented artists in their pursuit of excellence
Through the Looking Glass Annem Zaidi Cyra Ali Faryal Ahsan Sara Pagganwala Scheherezade Junejo Zahra Malkani
Through the Looking Glass
Annem Zaidi | Cyra Ali | Faryal Ahsan | Sara Pagganwala | Scheherzade Junejo | Zahra Malkani
Satrang Gallery is proud to display Through the Looking Glass, an exhibition which presents an ensemble of artworks by six exceptionally talented art stars. This in-depth dispay explores and dissects the concept of portraiture. Artists have been painting portraits in various forms for centuries and have thus been preserving the image of man. However, as this exhibition demonstrates, portraiture captures far more than the physical or even the emotional appearance of an individual, it seeks to preserve a state of being and convey an identity, influenced by history, society and culture. The artists in this exhibition have responded distinctly to this important art form. Annem Zaidi and Sara Pagganwala have both turned towards their own image by producing self-portraits. In certain pieces, Zaidi has concentrated on the faces of her subjects, highlighting the strength of character visible in their set features and strong bone structures.
Her subjects are defiant and their closed expressions ward off the viewer. In other artworks, she leaves her leaves her subjects in shadow, mysterious and cloaked in darkness. Zaidi’s women are powerful; her art challenges regressive and degenerative social behaviour. Pagganwala has dealt with the concept of identity and self-depiction on a metaphysical scale, she utilizes a variety of mediums including performative and installation based art to investigate the enigmatic human state. Cyra Ali and Scheherzade Junejo have broadened the idea of the portrait by investigating the behaviours of their subjects when they interact on individual and social levels. Both artists have translated and morphed their observations of the female body into truly spectacular works. Ali has transformed and multiplied a pair of legs into intricate and brightly patterned wallpaper in her series Wall Flowers. By reducing her subjects into a pair of legs, Ali emphasizes the lack of control and visibility that women often suffer from. Inspired by traditional performance such as dance and theatre, Junejo has portrayed contorted female figures, occasionally merging within one another, one another, distilled to greys, whites
and blacks to create composed images portraying the facets of individuality and humanity. However, Faryal Ahsan and Zahra Malkani have chosen to utilize their exploration of the portrait, often of an individual face, as a gateway to highlight national crises - violence against women and nationalist movements. Ahsen’s artworks resonate for they emphasize that the individuality of a woman, often visible in the uniqueness of her face, is robbed by perpetrators of such vicious attacks. Ahsan’s complex collages are composed of a variety of images, many taken from popular culture, reminding the viewer of the multiple layers which comprise a woman’s identity. Finally, Malkani’s artwork presents images of nationalism and resistance. Her portraits are an ode to the seldom recognized missing individuals who have been strategically removed – their families and loved ones left with nothing more than their memories and their portraits which have proliferated via the internet and digital media, becoming part of the fabric of cyberspace. The exhibition will run from 17 September – 17 October
Zahra Khan Curator
Annem Zaidi The underlying theme of my work revolves around the power and resilience of a woman. Each face is unique both in form and expression; what connects them all together is the single most meaningful quality that every individual ought to possess – courage. This is why each subject’s gaze defies the cultural stereotype of a woman. Here she is bold, brave, resilient, and above all, emerging out of every circumstance, unscathed.
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The one who got away Oil on canvas 30 X 36 Inches
Moment of truth Oil on canvas 36 X 36 Inches
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Cyra Ali “The Belly’s hunger gives no clues as to the complexities of the cuisine”. Michel Foucault. Most of my work stems from my desire to overturn the conventional trappings of femininity/masculinity and combat the longstanding patriarchal desires to repress female sexuality. The work is based on the underlying assumption that sexuality is constituted in society and history and not just biologically ordained. The Wall Flowers Series is based on such struggles/accomplishments of day to day life that fade into the background but are an inherent part of who we are and who we become. It is a celebration and mourning. 03
Detail of ’Jo khayay wo bhi pashtayay, Jo na khayay wo bhi pashtayay’
Jo khayay wo bhi pashtayay, ’Jo na khayay wo bhi pashtayay’ (The Wall Flower Series) Acrylic and needlepoint on canvas 58 X 64 Inches
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Faryal Ahsan My artwork “Kintsugi“ was inspired by all those beautiful survivors of the brutal acid and kerosene attacks of which have come to plague our society and have led to the complete and utter isolation of those women who have been victimized. It has become a mechanism of oppression in our society to disfigure and attack a woman’s outer shell, after a man’s masculinity is snubbed in a way that harms the ego of the man in the zeitgeist culture of the modern epoch. With the carnal belief that beauty lies in the face, the “superficial layer” (visage) which foremost comes into vision when communicated to, the surface is the prime target of where the terror is afflicted. 05
Kiran Gouache on Vasli & Phototransfer 8 X 8 Inches
After these women are put through the torture of their physical identity being washed into an unidentifiable abyss, they are faced with a lifelong corporal and emotional as well as undying pain of never feeling accepted or owning to be smiled at again. Their precious lives are spent in hospitals or psychiatric wards where they are cut off from the society, family and loved ones. Feeling for such victims inspires an understanding of the courage that reverberates from some of these survivors who opened back up to living a life after infinity trials and ordeal clinic visits, therapy and allowing one-self to manage with everyday livelihood after an attempt to break them has been made. For me that’s where the title of this artwork ‘Kintsugi’ evolved from, a Japanese form of art which is practiced to repair broken pieces using gold. It lies in the philosophy of Kintsugi that the repair and breakage is a part of the history of a matter and as an alternative of hiding the damage it illuminates the repair.
Amna Gouache on Vasli & Phototransfer 9 X 11 Inches
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Sara Pagganwala The definition of oneself has become an increasingly perennial question; a question that emerges out of this quest of self-discovery and reevaluating one’s identity. It is perhaps fair to say that this never-ending pursuit of searching for identity to be one of the pivotal enigmas that one tries to figure out, as a means of understanding one’s standing in life and the position of our very existence and reason to be. The demarcations of institutional discourse no longer pacify the urge to define oneself. No longer do just socio-cultural, religious, political or traditional methods fit the formula to secure our impression of a unified realistic self. Unconsciously, art acts as a delegate to represent these 07
Exodus of Origin Digital Print 3 X 2.7 Inches
issues in physical materiality. And that physical metamorphosis transcends your thoughts in the actual world whereby you become an audience to yourself; you are able to stand back and confront existence in a translation that was unachievable when it was in such close proximity within you. The illusion of you manifests itself to be deciphered now in accordance to orientation of space and place. You are now challenged and titled to an identity. The need to decode its very infrastructure is in further confrontations.
Woman Paper silver leaf (On going sculpture, first of two pieces, second replica gilded in 18 kt. Gold Leaf in process) 36 X 36 Inches
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Scheherezade Junejo Inspired by various aspects of Dance, Mime, Yoga and Theatre, my work began as an observation of human behaviour through postures, movements and portions of anatomy. This exploration evolved into a study of polarity. The essence of polarity first translated into my colour palette; I prefer to work with two extremes; black and white. Echoes of polarity can be seen in various other ways as well; at times through the symmetry of the characters; at times through the placement of animate with inanimate objects; and at times through the conversation emanating between the figures, giving them a bipolar quality. In my mind, right and wrong do not exist. Rather I see the world in many shades 09
Bilateral III Oil on Canvas 50 X 32 Inches
of grey. With time, my paintings have evolved into highly choreographed visuals denoting the many personalities each of us has latent within us. I chose to represent these “many minds within one� through the balance of symmetry and asymmetry.
Quinate Oil on Canvas 60 X 60 Inches
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Zahra Malkani My work engages with visual articulations of protest and the circulation, proliferation, and archiving of images in cyberspace as evidence and resistance in the Baloch and Sindhi nationalist movements.
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Missing Persons -Jasim Baloch Oil on canvas 6 X 6 Inches
“Imperial Debris”, Studies 1-4 Oil on Canvas 11.5 X 7 Inches
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Satrang Gallery Asma Rashid Khan - Director Schezre Syed - Assistant Curator Dhoufishan Raza - Assistant Curator Mamoona Riaz - Consultant
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