Artist calls for locating, re-establishing vertical axis of enlightenment

The Chawkandi Art Gallery is hosting an art exhibition, which is titled ‘Allegory of Alienation’ and features the works by Shazia Qureshi, until June 2.

The artist says that the social fabric of Karachi is degenerating fast. “The once ‘City of Lights’ has turned into a city of garbage!” she explains. She says that mounds of garbage are piling up everywhere, and that this filth not only occupies a material space but also seems to be permeating the mindset of the people and their behaviours without them even being aware of it.

“When I look around me, I notice a kind of manic push and shove, snatching for personal gain and an incessant hunger to climb the social ladder by trampling upon others... it is all about self, self and self.”

The human being of today, she laments, is living a very alienated life, and now more so due to Covid-19. “The societal norms are not supportive of the common man, and it seems that the human values are also disintegrating and collapsing along with the infrastructure of urban life.”

She points out that everyone seems to be imprisoned within boxes of their desires or of societal norms very much like Plato’s allegory of the cave. They are limited and trapped by their immediate needs and wants, she explains.

“Only those who are spiritually strong or capable of rationally controlling their desires can free themselves from this captivity. So, it is of the utmost importance that we strengthen our philosophical reasoning and locate and re-establish the vertical axis of enlightenment.”

Shazia Qureshi graduated from the Karachi School of Art in 1994, majoring in printmaking. She continued her art practice, and exhibited in various exhibitions in Pakistan and abroad, including the UK, the US, Japan, Egypt and Romania.

In 2016 she finished her Masters in Philosophy from the University of Karachi. She has been associated with art education since 1995, teaching at KU’s Department of Visual Studies for over 18 years. She recently joined the Indus Valley School of Art & Architecture and The Millennium University College as adjunct faculty.

The Chawkandi Art Gallery has curated and nurtured the most compelling artists for over three decades. Its exhibitions and gatherings have created new forms of expression, and a hub that ignites and inspires.

Heralding the contemporary miniature art movement with its first group show, it was also the sole gallery in Pakistan for the late, iconic Zarina Hashmi.

Chawkandi’s founder Zohra Husain, a doyenne of the Karachi art scene, brought a cultural sophistication to the gallery, creating a space where stalwarts like artist Zahoor-ul-Akhlaq and architect Habib Fida Ali could assemble. Through the decades, Chawkandi has been instrumental in facilitating and supporting collectors and buyers, steering them

and artists in interesting linkages.

The gallery exclusively represented the works of Zahoor-ul-Akhlaq and Shahid Sajjad. Chawkandi continues to be a reliable dealer of authentic works of masters such as Chughtai, Sadequain, Ahmed Parvez, Bashir Mirza, Colin David and Ismail Gulgee among others.