Masooma Syed’s art explores themes of dislocation, freedom and the self
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eeing artworks in a studio is vastly different from viewing them in a gallery space. In a personal and private setting, they remain in dialogue with their maker; once displayed in an exhibition, they communicate to a diverse audience. Some viewers may be familiar with the artist’s practice, previous work, inspirations, influences and origins; even conflicts and contradictions. However, many might be unaware of these details, as well as ignorant of art history.
Like a skilled diplomat, a sharp politician or a popular socialite, a work of art conveys something unique to each individual. It offers a multiplicity of meanings to future generations – a kind of required password or passport to enter the canon of art.
Being invited to view an artist’s latest works in their studio, before they are packed and transported to an exhibition, is a privilege. Such an encounter prompts speculation about how these same artworks will appear once installed in a formal exhibition space – how they might change, not through any physical modification, but simply through a shift in context and background.
In this sense, a work of art, no matter how perfectly executed, is never truly complete. Much like a book, it continues to transform, evolve and generate new interpretations with each new encounter. A piece of art, though finished and dispatched, still remains a work in progress, awaiting further interventions, even after reaching a collector’s home.
What could be a general phenomenon for most artworks is particularly evident in Masooma Syed’s case. Her new paintings and three-dimensional constructions (from the solo exhibition An Ode to Empty Bottles, January 21–30, Canvas Gallery, Karachi) are, in their essence, works in progress or ‘open works’ (to borrow a term introduced by Umberto Eco). Built with autobiographical references – of past wars, the artist’s collection of objects, and things that manifest our desires and destinies – her work can be read as a narrative of disruption.
Or displacement: from one region to another, from one era to the next, from one practice (or diction) to a different one, from private to public – and, most significantly, from transitory to permanent. In a conversation with Syed, she shared that it is difficult to create on an expensive, clean and precious (in every sense of the word) surface, but liberating to work with ordinary materials, such as non-archival sheets, fragments of newspapers, or a canvas bearing the residues of previous paintings.
The modesty, unpretentiousness and abundance (or lack of perceived value) of such materials offer a greater freedom to express, experiment and explore – even to explode. In Masooma Syed’s recent paintings, various hues and colours seem to have a life of their own, independent of the outlines of forms (a perfume bottle, a parrot a human face). Paint floats across the canvas with an ease that only an intuitive and intelligent artist can achieve.
Assembled with layers of pigments (acrylic and oil) and torn pages from an old military newsletter (containing text and black-and-white photographs), each painting resists the influence or pressure of an audience – even the control of its creator.
The distinct quality of Syed’s latest canvases lies in the compulsion of the act (of producing imagery), which may encompass satisfaction, pleasure, frustration and agony – all at once. This state is perhaps best illustrated by an anecdote from English literary circles. In his book of essays, James Wood recounts:
A work of art conveys something unique to each individual and offers a multiplicity of meanings to future generations.
“Many years ago, the late poet and editor Ian Hamilton was sitting at his usual table in a Soho pub... A pale, haggard poet entered, and Hamilton offered him a chair and a glass of something. ‘Oh no, I just can’t keep drinking,’ said the weakened poet. ‘I must give it up. It’s doing terrible things to me. It’s not even giving me any pleasure any longer.’” To this, Hamilton responded “in a quiet, hard voice, ‘Well, none of us likes it.’”
Hamilton’s admission can be applied to artists. These creative individuals, deep down, rarely enjoy immersing themselves in a world or web of uncertainties, yet they are intrinsically compelled to consume themselves in the act of art-making – be it painting, sculpting or any other form. They produce work born out of agony and ecstasy, perpetually astonishing audiences near and far, both geographically and temporally.
It seems that, in some profound way, Masooma Syed’s material, method and medium were not chosen by her; rather, she was chosen by them. Only a select few artists achieve such harmony with the language of their expression. This tightly woven connection is evident in the way Syed transitions from one genre to another, from one image to the next and from two-dimensional to three-dimensional forms. Her Canvas Gallery exhibition also includes three sculptural constructions – in fact, chandeliers.
These structures, while functional (their electric bulbs can be illuminated), also symbolise something deeper. Their architecture – constructed from empty bottles of alcohol and perfume, or bird cages – illuminates another aspect of life: the enclosed sanctuary of one’s inner self. Both perfume and alcohol may ignite pleasure, but this pleasure – much like the fiction of Kazuo Ishiguro, as observed by Dwight Garner, which begins like PG Wodehouse and ends as Franz Kafka – inevitably brings bitterness, doubt and discontent; even disapproval.
This perpetual questioning, dissatisfaction and self-critique, along with the energy to transcend norms and conformity, is vividly evident in Masooma Syed’s work. Viewers are rarely prepared for or able to predict the experience of her highly accomplished paintings and innovative sculptures. Beyond their formal qualities, these pieces address themes of dislocation, as seen in the recurring image of parrots in her paintings Forever Beautiful and Blues. The bird also appears through its absence in the sculpture Balancing Act, composed of open and empty cages, found objects and two pheasant feathers resting in one bowl of a suspended scale.
For Syed – a Pakistani artist who, due to travel restrictions between India and Pakistan, can only meet her Indian husband in neutral locations like Sri Lanka or Nepal – the green parrot, a distinct South Asian species, serves as a metaphor for freedom, transcending national borders.
The personal aspect is but a minor detail within the complexity of the narrative that emanates from Masooma Syed’s art. Reminiscences of larger and more brutal conflicts are traced in pages featuring news of battles, pictures of soldiers in action and splashes of paint resembling spilled blood (Still Life in Scarlet). These elements are juxtaposed with yellow, empty scent containers (Seamless and The Ghost of Yasmine).
Spending time with her new work, one realises that the turmoil lies not merely in the choice of pictorial motifs and references but is accentuated by the manner of execution. Forms and objects appear to disintegrate, disconnect, disfigure and scatter.
In Masooma Syed’s art, the external, societal and political realities are delineated through an assemblage of products, articles and fragments of varying natures – materials that crowd her studio and reflect the confinement of our existence.
The writer is an art critic, a curator and a professor at the School of Visual Arts and Design, Beaconhouse National University, Lahore