Enigma Of Arrival

Residency is a good exercise to bring together artists who look beyond the commercial aspect of art

By Quddus Mirza

Imagine yourself waiting to collect your luggage inside the arrival lounge of an airport after a long flight, and gazing at carousel to spot your baggage. You are likely to come across a number of suitcases in different colours, sizes and shapes; all part of a group rotating on the moving carousel. As soon as you recognise your piece from its surface marks, name-tag or coloured ribbon tied on the handle, you hurry in order to remove it from the line of other cases.

Artists' experience of being in a residency is not too dissimilar to the journey of these suitcases -- different but destined to be together. In the residencies, professionals spend time together sharing ideas, materials and methods. After that period is over, they return to their own studios and customs (if not to another residency or workshop in a distant land!).

It is often observed that the visiting artists join these residencies with their preconceived schemes and work plans. They even bring their own tools and objects, but usually the opportunity of being with others transforms their concepts and attitudes towards art. It is completely different from the normal course of art world, where creative people are supposed to be in a continuous process of producing work, projecting it through media and selling it in the gallery.

The artists' workshop or residency offers a separate approach to art-making. It encourages the artists to move out of this cycle of studio, commercial gallery, academic conditioning and private collection. A challenging task, it manages to introduce a different dimension to one's thinking process and pictorial productions. Individuals find fresh approaches and new schemes of converting ideas into tangible forms.

There are various residencies/artists workshops, both in Pakistan and elsewhere, that invite artists to work in a given space and time. Their output is then shown at the premises where they work, in an alternative space or at a gallery. In fact the word alternative is important in connection with these activities. Because in its essence these residencies offer a venue to those artists who are not accepted or appreciated in the art market owing to their young age or experimental work.

Actually this concept of having an alternative voice in the visual art has led to an interesting phenomenon. Now along with artists who defy art establishment exist another kind of artists in these workshops and residencies who are aware of the benefits from both sides. So while they keep creating conventional works for commercial galleries and collectors, at the same time they give in to the internal demand to manufacture work in an unusual medium with some new imagery.

The case of Usman Ghouri is a perfect example to illustrate this trend. He participated in the 'Studio RM Residency 2008', along with four other artists, Tayeba Begum Lipi, Irfan Hasan, Sadaf Naeem and Saba Khan. During his residency, Ghouri produced a range of works (more than any other participant) in a variety of mediums such as acrylic on canvas, wooden sculptures, mixed media on wasli and digital prints. In this body of work one could glimpse influences of Mehr Afroze, Anwar Saeed and Imran Qureshi. But, by and large, these pieces represented Usman's typical style and scheme of working.

However it was the other set of work, the three dimensional objects titled 'Seeds', and 'Playing with Heart' a sequence of artist's pictures holding, eating and throwing a human heart that was intriguing . Both the wooden pieces and photographs were displayed in a series. These affirmed the artist's attitude that being in a residency it is preferable to fabricate works that are different from his usual stuff.

Contrary to Ghouri's example, other artists seemed to be gaining a new experience. For instance, Sadaf Naeem appeared to be moving further in her quest to formulate a personal and private language. Her canvases, with women in rural and urban settings, reminded of her previous works, except a piece that was created for a specific space in the gallery. A recurring image of woman covered in a shawl was composed with a background cut in such a way that the section of board revealed a portion of the gallery -- a view that was in harmony with the painted part in the work. Trees and leaves outside the gallery blended with the same motif drawn in the painting.

Likewise, Lipi and Hasan continued with their chosen way of shaping imagery and conveying their particular content. Tayeba Begum constructed an installation with shaving blades (next to her two canvases) but her concerns seemed to be rather contrived in connection with the issue of female presence in a society. Her work confirmed how a strong position can consume the poetics of image-making.

This was an aesthetics abundantly visible in the work of Saba Khan. She seemed to be confident of her medium, choice of imagery and formal concerns. In an unpretentious manner, she painted subjects such as a model changing his attire, maid holding a child and crows gathered after an explosion. Her themes -- instead of odd ideas and complicated methods -- reflected our immediate reality. The day to day life -- inside a house, on the street and as a nation (alluded to with titles 'Blast' and 'Government') -- was converted into sophisticated visuals. Patterns behind the figures and loosely-applied paint along with lines of charcoal showed a range of pictorial strategies. At the same time, the work called 'Blast' with crows rendered in realistic and stylised scheme suggested a new interpretation of miniature's aesthetics. Not only the selection of pure and strong colours, but the division of spaces also signified the artist's interest in the historic art of miniature.

With the diversity it offers in terms of artists' approaches, the residency is a good exercise to bring together artists who look beyond the commercial aspect of art, though this was not an exhibition without its share of price list.

Courtesy: The News Pakistan