Art Scene
Ethereal
By Fatima S. Khan
Los Angeles, CA
Cultural
renaissance has swept the city of Karachi and the
art scene is bustling with dynamic, cutting edge
and forward thinking synergy. The way to the future
is illuminated; there is willingness to scramble
the conventional ideas of genre, mixing criticism
and philosophical arguments and inching towards
experimentation both mundane and lofty, with a blending
of voice, style and genre. Such eclecticism is not
an end in itself. Unprecedented building and transformation
of nearly a dozen or so cultural and art institutions
takes the art scene to a completely new level. There
is professional reinvention in the fine art world,
with photography and digital art.
On a staggeringly beautiful January morning, soft
sunlight shimmering through the folds of fog, and
I was on my way to the Indus Valley School of Art
and Architecture Karachi. Although I heard compelling
stories of the structure, that now houses “Indus
Valley School of Art and Architecture”; none
came close to the 18th Century monument that stood
in all its glory right before my eyes. The Institute
is famous for undertaking a unique project of relocating
and reconstructing, stone-by-stone, a hundred-year
old historic building - a historic landmark of Karachi
- the Nusserwanjee Building, to the campus at Clifton.
This building which is part of Karachi’s architectural
heritage, was dismantled from it original site stone
by stone and is now part of the school campus. This
is a monumental achievement by the city of Karachi
and the founding members of “Indus Valley
School of Art and Architecture”.
I met Farah Mahbub at the entrance of the building
and followed her to the third floor of her photography
studio. As she threw open, the windows the Arabian
Sea at a close distance looked calm and composed;
the fresh breeze was uplifting and the morning light
was perfect to photograph. Farah a confident and
self-taught Avante Garde artist immediately indulged
into her favorite subject matter. “I love
the unconventional art forms because it is the most
individual and unmediated creature response to the
world”. She continues, “The connection
between becoming an artist and people who are outside
the mainstream is important particularly for people
who are self-taught like me”. Farah is self-taught
and made a smooth transition from conventional straight
photography into digital photo art (photo montageing);
she is heading the photography program at the Indus
Valley School of Art and Architecture.
Farah thrives on the fringe, there is a constant
sense of curiosity, she persists on being on the
edge. She has passion for the Ethereal. She navigates
between the corporate and the creative spheres.
She considers her work not as a linear influence
but as a pivotal influence. Her artwork is deeply
seeded with wisdom, depth and passion, it certainly
is most abstract in every sense and each work is
habitually unpredictable yet driven with independent
intellect. Her approach is noble and pure minded,
perhaps the dynamic images are a juxtaposition of
reality and fantasy. The fullness of the inward
threatened to burst the prevalent boundaries of
her artwork. The subject matter is a powerful longing
to be “One with the Creator” for deliverance
and salvation.
She expresses in her own poetry:
My Roshanee with still silent elegant grace walks
into my being
Sanity once drained refilled regained
She shows me the path to the truth in unimaginable
ways
As I am crushed with gratefulness my eyes fill up…
A strange desire sweeps through me
Sweet smells drown my senses
I hope and pray that maybe one day
Due to this immense generosity bestowed upon me
By the blessed souls silsala that leads to you—The
beyond
Make me worthy to have lived this part of the journey
to eternity,
For the sake of the blessed souls
Whose lives touched this wayward mortal and make
me whole.
Farah’s artwork radiates an excessive brilliance,
empathy and sympathy for the subject matter. In
the case of a young boy as a silhouette in the bubble
and outside the bubble, the outside image larger
than the inside evoking thoughts of beyond boundaries,
larger than life. Images of Mughal architecture
the shell within the bubble and the heightened creativity
of embellishments outside the bubble, the background
of palatial, monument entrenched in history, the
seamless melding of the present into the past.
She chooses subject matter that intoxicates the
sensually ecstatic, the seashores are boundaries
of energy and light cheerful capriciousness, the
mounds of molded earth are the trappings of the
mind, and the brilliance of the water sparks, seeking
freedom from such attachments and parameters reaching
for the higher source for that transcendent sublime
state of being. The images conjures thoughts of
the past and present seamlessly merging, the infinite
beauty of the seashores, the purity of the water,
the innocent playfulness of light and water ---
capturing the forever-elusive light forms permanently
from her expert vision and longing to be “One
with nature”.
Strikingly beautiful are the images of Jami Masjid
Ahmedabad; attempt was made to capture the glorious
past, she expertly evokes thoughts of the viewer,
with textures and colors that reach heights of opulence
and variety, a peculiar mixture of a study of the
grandeur of the past. Her vivid images of the urban
and the rustic, modern and archaic, baffling and
befuddling are incredibly inspiring, colors are
raw and interesting her desire to reach for the
“beyond” captures the viewer and stays.
Farah takes every subject matter seriously, cares
about them deeply, and treats each as an emotional
experience with a youthful gusto relying on her
hunches, some ambivalence she dares to scramble
so far off the limb and dares to explore and experiment,
the true intellect, steeped in awareness that is
her defining trait as a true artist.
Some of her artwork is an intricate assemblage of
real and imaginative, splashed in unpredictable
direction a purposeful act of wandering and searching.
A simple curiosity as in the case of --- rocks,
sky and sea painting ---such are objects of serial
curiosity, the texture of the rocks, the warm colors
form maybe the setting or the rising sun, edged
with the coolness of the water. She is gripped with
ideas, full of intellect, reaches out to her audience,
and lifts them to a heightened sense of perception
that deserved to be described as “subliminal”.
DolmabahcePalace-Istanbul
|
Jami-Masjid_Ahmedabad-India
|
Lifelines_Manuscripts_7
|
Lifelines_Manuscripts_10
|
Lifelines_Manuscripts_13
|
Lifelines_Manuscripts_20
|
MindscapesUnveiled_2
|
MindscapesUnveiled_4
|
MindscapesUnveiled_10
|
Roshanee_15
|
Serendipity_4
|
Serendipity_6
|
Serendipity_11
|
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
