KARACHI – Noor Ali Chagani, Waqas Khan, Imran Mudassar, Shoaib Mehmood, Huma Iftekhar and Kakul Kamran Kureshi completed their course of study at Lahore’s National College of Arts with a four-year specialisation in painting, miniature painting or sculpture, but time and experiences have shifted their specific practices to other disciplines of visual art, Chawkandi Art gallery curator Imran Qureshi said.
Chagani, trained as a miniature painter, shifted his practice to three-dimensional sculptures made from baked clay. He has used thousands of miniature terracotta bricks to create these sculptures, referring back to the idea of building miniature paintings with thousands of tiny brush strokes. Khan and Mudassar, both printmakers, have started creating works by using different techniques of miniature painting.
Mehmood, known as a miniature painter, has started using printmaking techniques of embossing and screen-printing to create his recent works. Iftekhar’s practice of miniature painting has been replaced by layering of architectural or mechanical drawings, challenging the technology of computer-oriented images. Kureshi, a formally-trained painter, uses her sculptures to depict the idea of abnormal behaviours interfering with nature or life.
This phenomenon of artists’ shift from their original practices to other disciplines of visual art creates diversity and variation of ideas and concepts in their art making.
Photos courtesy Chawkandi Art Gallery
