uman beings are endowed with a voice, but their reproduction of themselves – whether in drawings, sculptures, paintings, photographs or moving images – remained silent for centuries. It was only with The Jazz Singer (which premiered on October 6, 1927) that sound was added to movies, hence the term “talkies.” Today, we have pictures that speak ad infinitum. We are also surrounded by fellow humans who talk in person, on cinema screens, TV channels, social media, in their stories, reels, during Zoom sessions, etc. While it may be difficult to silence an individual or group in real life, we can easily mute our fellow beings or lower their volume by pressing a button or touching an icon.

This control, now exercised and enjoyed by ordinary individuals, was once the exclusive privilege of the state, military dictators and religious authorities. Through decrees, they could strip any persona non grata of their voice; censor their words in print; and erase their presence entirely. Today, from the comfort of our living rooms, remote control or mobile device in hand, we can shut down unwanted discussions, dialogues, or debates at will.

This power has seeped into our behaviour, transforming how we interact socially. The experience of being “masters of the world” – confined to our palm devices, LCD screens, or home TVs – has altered our dynamics. We interrupt others mid-sentence, raise our voices in harangues, or feign inattention to opposing views. Even on our phones, we frequently mute callers – whether for eight hours, a week, or indefinitely.

Ali Azmat’s recent body of work explores the theme of muteness. Drawing inspiration from our interaction with gadgets, Azmat deliberately chose proportions resembling LCD screens, along with two canvases shaped like tablets, complete with slightly rounded edges.

His paintings – marked by Azmat’s signature skill in rendering reality – depict groups of human beings gathered, perhaps posing for a photo or selfie. Many are captured mid-activity. Their next move or words remain elusive – not only because these are static paintings but because Azmat has deliberately added a small “sound off” icon in the centre of each canvas.

This addition transforms the paintings into more than silent depictions; it asserts that these individuals’ words have been deliberately silenced. Their voices are frozen, suspended in perpetuity, unless the artist chooses to remove the mute symbol from the image.

Let’s imagine removing the small circle featuring the mechanical speaker with a red cross from Azmat’s paintings, speculating what the figures might be doing or saying. A viewer can complete this process mentally, interpreting the scene and accessing its content through the multitude of languages spoken by the pristine painted figures.

This act mirrors the experience of travelling in a foreign country with an unfamiliar language. A visitor, unable to understand the local language, deciphers meaning through facial expressions, hand gestures, body postures, collective activities, styles of dress and the connection to the physical surroundings. While interpretation may occasionally miss the mark, it often provides a sufficient understanding of others without knowing a single word of their language.

Artists have long used this universal ability to imbue silent images with meaning. Viewing a young woman holding an infant in Raphael’s painting, for instance, we intuitively recognise them as mother and child – specifically, the Virgin Mary and Jesus. Similarly, a stone relief showing a large garlanded wheel inside a canopy, surrounded by four men with joined hands, is decoded as Buddha and his worshippers in a royal palace. These visual cues transcend language, allowing viewers to engage with the unsaid.

Azmat’s paintings depict separate groups of human beings. They are gathered, perhaps posing for a photo or selfie or captured mid-activity.

Azmat’s figurative paintings (included in his recent solo exhibition We the People…, held November 29–December 9 at ‘O’ Art Space, Lahore) tell of multiple types of personalities from our surroundings. Belonging to different age groups, social setups, sects, genders, professions and pursuits, these people indicate, sometimes too explicitly, their identity, intentions and actions. There are clusters of transgender individuals, local men, ordinary women, girls in headscarves and hijabs; young women busy with their selfies; Shia mourners in black attire against a dark background; four boys wearing white dresses and green turbans; and the artist with his wife and three daughters.

All of them are aware of being on the screen; and it is the screen we focus on, even though what we are actually seeing is acrylic paint on canvas. We also observe what these muted individuals communicate – or more precisely, what the artist conveys through their postures, props, settings and possessions.

For instance, all seven men standing together show their thumbs, marked with ink, as proof of having voted in the general elections. Similarly, the artist and his wife are depicted showing the cast vote marker beside their three daughters (each below voting age), who hold their green passports. The theme of voting or its confirmation, continues in another painting of females, where only one out of five modestly dressed young women points to her thumb marked with black ink.

Next there is a small crowd of transgender individuals raising their middle fingers, evoking Ai Weiwei’s series of photographs where he aimed his middle finger at houses of power around the world – a gesture that could be interpreted as an innocent documentation of a draughtsman measuring an object or as the Chinese dissident’s challenge to constructs of authority. These characters, when viewed alongside others in Azmat’s paintings – such as head-covered females making victory signs or young girls engrossed in their mobile phones with two aeroplanes flying in opposite direction – reveal the deeper content of the artist’s work.

The depiction of his family holding passports, Shia mourners and groups of thwarted voters reflects the artist’s stance on Pakistan’s current situation regarding freedom of expression and the value of an individual’s opinion in political matters. All these figures are muted, dissatisfied, disgruntled and stifled. In stark contrast, followers of a specific order, represented by green turbans, appear to enjoy freedom of speech. Four young boys wearing this religious attire are notably not muted in Azmat’s painting, underscoring the disparity in societal freedoms.

A set of black-and-white portraits of Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and his sister, Ms Fatima Jinnah, are also muted in Azmat’s diptych. The Great Leader and the Mother of the Nation are depicted in the format of social media posts, with microphones placed in front of them, alluding to how the state can silence even the most esteemed voices when they contradict its narrative.

Azmat’s work appears to reflect the recent events in the country, but his inclusion of these historical figures expands the scope of his imagery, preventing it from being perceived as merely an angry social media post. This broader context points to the fact that such acts of silencing are not confined to an individual or regime. The personalities and statements of the nation’s founders have long been misinterpreted, misconstrued and misrepresented to serve the agendas of those in power.

The reviewer is an art critic, a curator and a professor at the School of Visual Arts and Design, Beaconhouse National University, Lahore.