Daily Times

A group show of print making by various artists was put on display here on Tuesday featuring works by national and international printmakers.

The show titled “Etched and Inked” carries work of artists Aqeel Solangi, Atif Khan, Fatima Saeed, Irum Wani, Kate Bassett, Laila Rahman, Sameera Khan and Sarah Hopkins at Khaas Art gallery.

“Etched and Inked”, is an exhibition of group of innovative and established printmakers from UK, Denmark and Pakistan. It is focused solely on the art of printmaking.

It builds a positive context whereby artists are involved in the dissemination of their art works and share their ideas with the public through the mediators of a gallery, stimulating a greater sentience and knowledge of Original Prints to larger audiences. It deepens a mutual understanding and motivates a way of thinking, of and beyond political, pecuniary and social borders.

The participants have their own distinct style on the medium. It is a collection of prints from the artists with a very diverse approach. “Etched and Inked”, is also an allegory of the collaborative nature of printmaking that made it survive through the past to present, bringing forward both the traditional and contemporary, techniques and processes, said the organizers.

Printmaking is multi-faceted and what makes it further unique is that staying within the realm of art; one can produce an abundance of editions. Thus, giving an artist opportunity to produce and share more than one set of the same images. This makes the art accessible to everyone. It gives an ease of an ownership to a genuine art piece.

“Place – Replace, Location – Relocation are the main conceptual concerns in my work. Both etchings for this exhibition are etched on zinc and copper plates. In Swing, empty, half opened swing is a sort of invitation to sit, swing and celebrate life. Whereas the other etching, titled ‘Roots of the Soul’ has sort of soul-searching approach,” says Aqeel Solangi about the work.

“By and large, my work is a homage to local popular visual culture, paying tribute to its amalgamation of Central Asian/Persian aesthetics and a local South Asian blend of expressive storytelling. Borrowing from and building on a gamut of images and iconography across hundreds of years of Mughal culture and miniature paintings, to local truck art and a diverse range of visual materials from my everyday life, I create an imaginary universe. Juxtaposing images in contrasting environments subverts their original contextual meaning and opens windows on new stories that speak of my concerns about spiritual and physical worlds, simultaneously” , Atif Khan said about the show.

Fatima Saeed, about the work said, “My art practice revolves around the ideas of displacement, the sense of belonging, memory and nostalgia. These themes revolving around resettling and readjusting are addressed through visual symbolism in my work.”

Iram Wani says that nature inspires me immensely. I am fascinated by the rotation of bloom and wither. Being an adamant believer in the restorative effects of nature, the fauna and flora are integral elements of my conceptual and pictorial narrative, resonant in the print, “Peace Within”.

The intaglio print “Dreamscape”, espousing, an ardent focus on traditional printmaking, is a rendering of the possibility and impossibility. It is a land of infiniteness, and an expanded possibility: The show continues till January 12.