Painting exhibition of national winners opens

Islamabad : ‘The Winners,’ an exhibition featuring the works of 14 of the 21 artists who won prizes in the four nationwide competitions of the biennale ‘Arjumand Painting Award,’ are now on display for public viewing at Gallery6.

In 2015, Gallery 6 launched the said award to recognize outstanding emerging Pakistani artists who possess distinguished talent in painting.

The paintings of Kiran Saleem, who won the first prize in 2015, are mainly concerned with realizing the truth behind common happenings. She has presented a commentary on our current socio-political scenario in a fascinating way, using the dog as a symbol from a historic painting.

Saba Zahid won the second prize in 2015. Her paintings discuss the image and identity of a woman in today’s world, and how today’s culture and traditions have moulded. The art practice of Zakir Baloch, who won a merit prize in 2015, revolves around ordinary objects that have innumerable visual possibilities. The process of rendering the drawing and making different significant visuals out of them becomes his contentment.

Irfan Gul Dahri won the first prize in 2017. Regarding his current series, Irfan states that as kids, we hear stories with fantastic characters of hybrid nature possessing human and non-human attributes and living in far-away lands of magic which makes them strangely attractive. From Egyptian, Greek and Hindu mythologies to Tom and Jerry and emojis, human beings have been living this parallel reality through creative imagination since time immemorial. In short, he is anthropomorphising the ideas and stories dwelling between the realm of perceived existence and fantasy.

The ongoing work of Naqsh Raj, winner of third prize in 2017, is a union of mechanical and manual methods of painting. Repeating a mundane technique for imprint making with human hands is the symbolism in her imagery. Bushra Khalid is the winner of the merit prize in 2017. Through her current artworks, she wants to inculcate empathy in people towards the planet earth which is facing deadly consequences of climate change.

Javaid Iqbal Mughal won the merit prize in 2017 and the third prize in 2019. His work explores silent conversations between the male genders in society and studies the unbalanced nature of hierarchy amongst men.

Syeda Unab Sumble, the winner of first prize in 2019, focuses on ordinary people who contribute significantly to our lives in subtle ways but remain unnoticed. Unab’s attention to detail, blended with the diligent colour schemes and hyperrealism, leaves the audience in awe.

Samra Cheema, the winner of second prize in 2019, paints directly from the tube or dry paints on the canvas and creates sensational texture using her fingers. She portrays human emotions. Asghar Ali, the winner of the merit prize in 2019, finds himself obsessed with human portraits conveying a state of feelings. He tends to prioritize the micro expressive details which portray the joy, pain, anger, anxiety, or depression of the subject.

Karim is the winner of first prize in 2021. His current body of work investigates the independent issues of the outcomes of war—on man and on nature, deforestation and global warming. The chosen medium is charcoal that reflects these concerns as it is a by-product of a volatile process in itself, acting as a metaphor for life cycle, and the potential of a human to rise from the ashes.

Khadija S. Akhtar is the winner of the second prize in 2021. She attempts to chase and reimagine the ephemeral joy of what once was. The artist’s battle against depression leads to an intimate quest, seeking and depicting spaces of comfort, as a process of retrieving episodic memories, processing trauma, and questioning history.

Ahsan Javaid, the winner of third prize in 2021, often finds himself caught between the subjective and the objective truth and sometimes asks himself, "What is real?” The work that he has been producing in the last few years has recently been transformed from an investigation of his perceived reality into a search for the imaginative realm of his subjects.

Sana Iqbal is the winner of the merit prize in 2021. Through her work, she tries to explore how boundaries are defined, their connection with the concept of ‘other’, and the impact they have on our identity as a nation and an individual. She does this by examining sites that are abandoned or once were as they provide a unique fusion of the past and present.

The exhibition will continue till Thursday January 27 daily from 11 am to 7 pm.