The term self-taught is widely debated owing to the fact that one obtains knowledge from various sources. However, there are self-taught artists who believe they do not want to adulterate their innate understanding of art by looking at it through the lens of another. And then there are those who believe that art institution would provide them a ground for collective idea building and learning, and want to experience the development of ideas with tutors and peers in the ‘hot house’ environment of an art school.

Of course there is no right or wrong way of doing it, provided one is clear of what one wishes to accomplish, depending on one’s reasons of making ‘art’ or being an ‘artist’ which at times can be two different things.

The National College of Arts serves as one such space, known to have been the nurturing ground for many. Each year’s thesis promises new additions in the Pakistani art world, as was evident in the Fine Arts Department’s Degree Show held from Feb 15-23, 2015. A total of 30 students participated showing works created in different genres.

There is understandably the pressure to do things like they have never been done before: the penchant to examine material not just as a means but as a conceptual facet of the work seems like a predominant curiosity which accompanies the artists’ inquiry into an array of subjects. An apt example of this is Syed Haider Ali’s studies in the shifts in unplanned urbanisation and the resultant structural changes. His work is sensory in nature and works with layering mediums. The use of cement in his work serves both as a medium and as a metaphor for urbanisation. His work is experimental, and technically and conceptually eloquent.

Syeda Fatima Batool’s Sketchbook Series has a raw illustrative quality to it. The squiggles or marks coming together form the larger picture. There seems to be a sense of contradiction in the very nature of her work. A sketchbook generally gives way to a more intimate viewing experience, whereas Batool’s work dispenses inimical aura with its jam-packed imagery and scale urging the viewer to step back. What is interesting is the ability of the work to seem meaningless upfront and open up with distance.

Batool’s work is open to perception and embarks the viewer on a rather individualistic journey of vision and perception, unlike Rabia Ehsan’s installations work which is more didactic and planned in nature. Working with the intrinsic relationship between the simple and complex, pattern and disorder, the accepted socially unacceptable in society, she studies our social inclinations towards creating a monoculture that shuns diversity.

However, the diversity in terms of genre is found in many other graduating students. For instance, Hoor Ahmed has made immaculate miniature along with her video installation shown on opposite sides of a corridor. Her work addresses the issues of body, ancestry and explores how the forms of various kinds intermingle in order to create a narrative that is personal as well as political at the same time.

Another student, Qutub Rind, graduating in Miniature painting extends the notion of tradition by transforming his images from hand-painted technique to assemblage of reflective paper, cut in smaller circular shapes, thus offering a unique view to his subject that related to violence, history and heritage. Interestingly Rind’s visuals appear closer to the method of offset printing as well as Pointillism, in which an image is dissected in tiny parts to make the larger picture.

The tradition of miniature is explored, extended and examined in the work of Mehreen Fatima, in which surfaces related to intimate views of rooms, buildings and living spaces are carved on paper, thus layers of subtle grays are more like the memory of a house or room rather than its literal representation. The transformation of a certain location into lyrical and poetic visuals is not devoid of a politically conscious content, due to the presence of grills and metal boundaries around structures, a pictorial experience that has become a norm in our turbulent times and cruel conditions.

Reflection on physical spaces is evident in the work of Farhat Ali too, who graduated in Painting. Taking his studio space as his source of inspiration, he has painted naturalistic canvases parting the walls of studio with paint stains, masking tapes, thumb pins, scratches and random marks. The convincing skill of depicting mundane matters suggests how art can be a subject of art itself. Perhaps the most imposing and important work of Ali is a large canvas, put against a wall, on which the wall is reproduced in its minute and precise detail. Hence defying the difference or distinction between art and reality.

The distance between art reality and dreams is approached in the work of another painting graduate, Ayesha Akbar. Her fantasy-like landscapes executed in soft layers of grays and diluted colours brings a viewer to the experience of seeing not reality but an encounter with the other world-like entity. Her work, especially with large flat blank surface next to small intricately painted landscapes, is read as a comment on the practice of paintings displayed in the gallery with their titles on a smaller scale. The shift in the order certifies how the artist questions the existing order and introduces an unusual aspect.

This is similar to what is visible in the work of Shameen Arshad’s painting, with her shift in the order of language. The language in its essence is a means to communicate but, as it is observed, often it is implied to disguise or deceive the intended meanings and intentions. In her work, text seems coherent on the surface, but on a deeper look unfolds the ephemeral nature of our discourses. Yet looking at the work of graduating class, one becomes aware that the contribution of the institution towards the articulation of their ideas pairs with their own ability to utilise the resources in their surroundings, and this has brought forth a strong body of work.