‘Understanding the unsaid, looking at the unseen’

Karachi
While artists engage with the representation of the visible, the tangible and the substantial, they are also inclined to study the intangible and the absence of physicality. The unsaid and the unseen take on a plethora of meanings and open up a world of possibilities. The investigations must not merely theoretical or metaphysical. They should be personal narratives that are more relevant because they have been lived and experienced rather than studied.
Madiha Hyder, an artist, presented these views at an art exhibition titled ‘Missing’ of three artists at Canvas Gallery on Tuesday.
She said our views and judgments about people were deeply related to face value. “We realise that many more of our inherent senses become heightened and enhanced. Our innate perceptions that lie dormant spring into action. I enjoy the idea that my paintings take on open-ended thematic inferences and offer themselves to myriad variable interpretations, as then, the opportunities for discovery become infinite,” Hyder stated.
Her paintings ask you to remind the lost ones you once knew very well. The use of minimal elements, specially the missing face in her paintings, appeals the viewer to remember someone who was in subconscious memory. Looking at her paintings, one can connect the missing dots to imagine the lost face.
The other artist who presented her paintings at the exhibition was Rehana Mangi. She said her art was a combination of her memories and experiences.
“Inherited from my grandmother, I have a habit of unconsciously collecting fallen hair in order to prevent black magic, a super natural evil power which is often said to be practised on human hair,” she said.
Mangi said she practised ‘cross-stitch’, a form of counted thread embroidery, and immensely enjoyed it. “It is a complex technique in which every stich and pattern created is counted and calculated. I use hair as a metaphor of death and loss. I pick colourful patterns from my childhood memories like flowers and butterflies stitched on pillow covers back in Larkana,” the artist said.
There was a well-handled projection of Sindhi culture on her paintings where she used the colour combinations with utmost care.
The artwork of Madiha Sikandar was also at display, depicting how photographs fade and how we start losing our past memories slowly and gradually.
The exhibition will run till April 16.