Duo Show At Nomad Gallery Continues To Allure Art Lovers

The thought provoking duo show by artists, Saadia Hussain and Mohsin Shafi continues to allure the art lovers of twin cities here at Nomad art gallery on Wednesday.

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 19th Dec, 2018 ) :The thought provoking duo show by artists, Saadia Hussain and Mohsin Shafi continues to allure the art lovers of twin cities here at Nomad art gallery on Wednesday.

The exhibition titled, "No Man's Land," showcase artworks including, mix media, photography, text, painting and a vivid imagination to capture fleeting imagery from history and the inner self.

Saadia Hussain exhibited her artworks, nationally and internationally in group and solo shows in major cities of Pakistan, including at Syra Art Gallery, DC Washinghton and John Hopkins University Washington.

According to her, my most recent work is focused towards translating the pictorial language and interpretation presented by photography into my own visual vocabulary.

Vintage family photographs, both monochromatic and other mediums such as photo construction, and paintings are the means to create my work.

In addition, my images have been part of blurred space by over lapping figures, and the use of military history to create the illusion of a complex reality.

A Photograph for me is a way to tell a story and evoke a feeling. My goal is to translate history into a story of which fantasy is an essential element. A Photograph for me is a way to tell a story and evoke a feeling. My goal is to translate history into a story of which fantasy is an essential element, she added.

The other artist of the show, Mohsin Shaf in his artists' statement said, I exploit my unadulterated access to the deepest emotions embedded beneath the surface, only to explore the whispered secrets of dreams and long buried memories. This is my burden, my struggle constant, in hopes to validate the "I".

I question the blurred edges between identity and the intentions of identity. Attempting to capture what I see and record their frail existence, only to return and relive.

Hoping to make the viewer see reality through the fiction of my eyes. Where nothing is as it is and everything is as it is not.

The visual metaphors combine realistic portrayals of ordinary events with elements of myth, to allow myself the luxury of a disconnection from the fallacies of truth.

Hoping to record the naked and defenseless ideas of the subconscious mind, somewhere between dreams and their documentation.

I use the worn, the used, the almost invisible. These small, unique, yet ordinary things. I therefore investigate the dark recesses of the relevant human psyche, to explore a reality of ghouls and monsters. This assume to be an effort to recreate my world, in a no man's land.

It is the idea of the abnormal that fascinates me and perhaps therefore the preoccupation with narcotics and the dangerous pursuit of chemical dreaming.

The work is based on personal snapshots, images from old compendium, borrowed from acquaintances and some even stolen from social media. These are in my opinion, disturbing interpretations of familiar subjects, slumbering histories and buried traumas. Through a play with an existing library of image and text, I attempt to communicate multiple interpretations of the one true meaning. And perhaps in doing so, pose more questions than answers. These perceived images hence become facets of my current persona, both real and imagined.

These are the spaces between translation and interpretation where confusion happens and things are forgotten and remembered as stories change. We keep being born, we keep dying, with a mechanical predictability, an insistent return. Does this accumulate towards a greater ideological evolution or just a weak existence on repeat in the land - unknown? After all, we are the reaps of our early experiences. "I" certainly "am".