Home > Pakistan Exhibitions > Time, space and that girl
 Experts believe that the oil-on-paper technique can work wonders for sketching, not to mention a few other forms of drawing. It’s a pretty toilsome medium to come to grips with. Leave aside the fact that it’s a less expensive option, for that’s not what Babar Azeemi is looking for. The artist is trying to achieve something that cannot be confined to temporal happenings. But his subject is pretty time-bound, which is what makes his work worth discussing. I’m referring to Azeemi’s recent exhibition titled ‘Peeps into time and space’ at Clifton Art Gallery, Karachi.
It’s a little vague what Babar Azeemi means by ‘peeps into time and space’. It could be his subject, an attractive girl with eyes that are as elliptical as they get, peeping into time and space or different other ‘peeps’. But let’s get straight to business first.
There are a few things to look at here: the girl with a well-shaped forehead; birds (could be pigeons, parrots etc.); ornaments; and the setting where that girl is placed. Now all girls seem to be either the same individual or derivatives of one female. There’s no need for reading too much into the decked up young woman or the jewellery she’s put on. Nor is there any requirement for judging her character. What you should look at is the strokes and colours that Azeemi has chosen to put his khayalat across.
The artist is obviously aware that you cannot employ thick oil on paper to avoid the danger of early breaking. So his colours are strong but not heavy on the eye, and his strokes are firm but not overly dense. There’s an element of predetermination, which is not a bad thing in art.
What’s to mull over here is the time and space concept. On a philosophical plane time and space raise the query whether they have an autonomous existence and are unrelated to the human mind. Are they, or are they not, mutually exclusive? Does time have a linear movement?
Then there is a sage who believes time has two dimensions: its length is measured by the rhythm of the sun but its depth by the rhythm of passion.
Bearing in mind the above-mentioned definitions (not concocted by this writer by the way) Babar Azeemi’s motifs throw up a rather unusual debate. It can be construed as his subject’s longing for something that’s no more an object belonging to the sequential order of life. Or the subject itself has a dual reality, something that has moved its creator no end, something that he can’t let go of.
Whatever it is, Babar Azeemi’s effort makes you think more than anything else. And that’s considered enough in the fascinating world of art. |
