Daily Times

Online art gallery Artciti will hold a four-day exhibition titled ‘dilemmas’ by artist Zara Khan in Karachi tomorrow (Saturday). Zara Khan is a Pakistani artist working in mixed media.

The organic contours and figurative symbolism in her work speaks to the viewer in a highly compelling and thought provoking way. Her work at times is comical, exaggerated, a heaven of textured abstraction, a forced deconstruction, and a pure rejection of the classical. It urges us to renegotiate painting as part of a reactive or at times autistic medium, commenting on oppressing themes in our contemporary society, personal adventures and sorrows. By contesting the division between the realm of memory and the realm of experience, she creates intense personal moments that are masterfully created by means of rules and omissions, acceptance and refusal, luring the viewer round and round in circles.

Her works doesn’t necessarily reference a recognisable form and the results are deconstructed to the extent that meaning is shifted and possible interpretation becomes multifaceted. By rejecting an objective truth and cultural narratives, we are faced with an unprecedented situation in which the viewer is confronted with the conditioning of his own perception and has to reconsider his biased stance. The possible seems true and the truth exists, but it has many faces. Zara Khan currently lives and works in Karachi, Pakistan.

The Artciti gallery opened its doors in January of 2014 and has grown exponentially in the last few years. It had a wide collection of more than 1,500 art pieces from over 270 artists from all over Pakistan. The gallery also delivers art pieces across the world, both framed and unframed.

Published in Daily Times, May 11^th 2018.