A week-long exhibition of paintings by three female artists continued to attract art enthusiasts at the Nomad Art Gallery.
The show `Wandering Souls’, which will continue till November 24, is primarily focussed on the innovative skills of female artists in diverse mediums. These artists include Samina Ali, Shireen Ikram and Salma Manzoor.
Samina’s collection displays `harf’ or letters based on a dimensional assemblage of forms and images that portray symbolism of love and peace in an inborn and meditative perception.
Salma explores stages of women’s life in various forms. According to her, the female figure has always been a point of focus in the work of artists and authors. She creates an emotional and sentimental picture of the traditional female figure, her confrontation with society and changes in behaviour due to an unequal socio-economic status. “In sub-continent, due to a great influence of Hindu mythology women had been depicted either as goddesses or witches, in accordance with their relationship to the class they abode in,” she said. In Pakistan, women were represented mainly as tragic icons in art and literature to demonstrate the discrimination faced by ordinary women due to an encroachment on their rights and their abilities to achieve their desired goals.
Salma said that the soft and ambitious character of women had been destroyed and the very dilemma for developmental stages of women was based upon gender biased customary values. Her work exhibited recycled handmade paper in the medium of water colours with a number of common elements including the drawn female figure, divisions of space and pearls painted in a sea green colour.
Shireen’s art explored the topic of ‘Ability’ in which she questioned thoughts in her mind. Thoughts that fascinated and appealed her were depicted on canvas in an artistic way.
Her work experimented with various mediums through colours mostly consisting of reds, blues and oranges to show ideas through symbolism.
