An exhibition of paintings titled ‘Sublime Encounters’ opens at Rohtas Gallery today displaying the works done by visual artists Qadir Jhatial and Tahir Ali. The exhibition showcases about 12 paintings done in two contrasting shades and diverse metaphors of life by the artist duo.
The artists examine a restrictive and complicated maze, both visually and spatially, through various techniques and mediums, taking impressions and judgments into their surroundings and hence forming a critical representation of a distorted reality.
Sharing his observations and aesthetic account of the works presented by the duo artists, Naeem Pasha, Director of Rohtas Gallery said that both works are opposite expressions of similar aesthetic sensitivity. Pasha described Jhatial’s work as complex yet pleasing in colour distribution at first glance, but the viewer must ‘live with it’ for a while to have a full grasp of his creative concept, Pasha added. About Tahir Ali’s work, Pasha found it to be opposite of Jhatial as Tahir Ali’s works done in darker shades portrays hidden words and meanings. Both artists have played with their creative powers to tickle the imaginative nuances of the viewers, Pasha said.
Jhatial is inspired by social discrepancies and presents his works in emulsion paints with eye-catching splashes of vibrant colours bright colours, showing a complex chromatic order which takes a few seconds for the viewer to decipher. Inspired by social situations, Qadir Jhatial portrays his landscapic visions reflecting his personal experiences and impressions of the world into minimalistic shapes and has heightened the reality of his setting.
Tahir Ali’s paintings are powerful abstract creations. Moving away from social issues, Ali’s paintings are darker in shades with jarred abstract depictions of landscapes that have been distorted and inverted and are almost unrecognisable. However, they are carefully composed to reduce the viewers’ ability to see through the dreamlike landscape, which is much like the experience in a labyrinth.
Sharing his own aesthetic impulses and mode of his works, Jhatial says that his work is inspired from the elements in his surroundings and a multiple level of his aesthetic inquiry. He transforms objects from environment around in to visuals of complex chromatic order through interplay of space, surface, texture, and materials. He says that the sensitive use of domestic and familier items are sources that helps him portray his work as personal and imaginative. With keen interest of exploring new ideas, mediums, and methods of working, he searches for experience in a diverse visual vocabulary, especially in flat colour paintings.
Tahir Ali on the other hand talks about his work as the outcome of gestures, expressive lines and intuitive colour choice, notes an observational record, but contains elements of emotional experience in nature. About his works on display, Tahir says that it evolved from photographs of landscapes and cityscapes that he took. By inverting colours, he has transformed the mood of his images from everyday typical scene to dark, gloomy, and chaotic images that reflects unrest and unease. Form and rhythm plays an active role in his work process and the subtle shades create a restless and moving balance. Tahir’s paintings also plays with the 2-dimensionality of a canvas, while some explores and enhances the surface, others creates an illusion of 3-dimensional depths through multiple layering, imagination, and mark making.
When it comes to capturing the color, texture and character of people, animals and other things, she blossoms with a stroke of a rich oil or smooth watercolor brush in her own realistic style.
"I am having so much fun trying out different forms of art at this point, I haven't stopped to think about the whys," said the Auburn woman, who even took a welding class to experience the medium. "(But) when I get to paint, I feel like a kid who has just been let out for recess, and all I want to do is squeeze as much playtime in as possible."
The kid at heart inspired Ray to paint a popular entry at a local exhibit. Envisioning what a child would fondly remember growing up, Ray captured the spirit of a small farm and a scene of seven soft, adorable baby chicks playing and plucking for worms inside a straw-filled barn.
"We've become so urbanized, and it seems comforting to remember life in the country," Ray said of her oil painting, A Home of Straw, on exhibit through Dec. 16 the White River Valley Museum. The painting is part of the Small Works, Big Presents: The Gift of Art, a juried exhibit and art sale at the museum.
"(The painting) evokes memories of going to grandma's house and exploring the barn and fields, playing with farm animals, doing chores, getting dirty and the family working together," she said. "I never lived on a farm, just visited them, but that is how I imagined it to be."
A Home of Straw – a 4-by-18-inch oil painting – attracted plenty of good reviews from the public at the annual show, winning the People's Choice Award. It is the first time an Auburn artist has captured the honor. Ray won a $400 prize and the opportunity to have one of her works featured on the exhibit's promotional poster and advertisements next year.
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