Daily Times

The annual art thesis of the National College of Arts (NCA), Lahore, opened to the public recently. While, numerous brilliant and talented artists, architects, textile, visual art, miniature, ceramics, and graphic designers showcased their artworks.

This year, the Degree Show was inaugurated by Federal Minister for Federal Education & Professional Training and Federal Minister for National History & Literary Heritage Shafqat Mahmood. While the first day of the annual thesis display is a private showcase where special guests are invited.

This year, NCA’s apprentices produced alluring and extraordinarily, amazing work which they displayed at their annual thesis. Some of the artworks which were highlighted the most were by Hira Asim. She said, “My work mirrors the inner workings of my mind. My focus recently has been on the abstract representation of my thoughts. For years, living in this country, in my own household I have been privy to the inability of fully expressing my opinions and outlook on things, so much so that it has created a rift between my family. My experimentation with lines is a way for me to show the chaotic nature of all of my suppressed feelings that have been urging to get out in to the world but instead have been piling up on top of each other inside. The actual process of the work is a very meditative process for me but the actual meaning behind it is the very antithesis of the word- for its supposed to showcase my struggle to actually find clarity and peace of mind.”

Furthermore, Farwa Ahad Rizvi’s work revolved around the wrong concept about various events. She said that my work is inspired by the event and history of Karbala. I explored and worked with the objects that we relate to Shia’ism nowadays and placed them with an ambiguous background, raising questions as to why these objects have become the only immediate association with Shia’ism. This will surely make people understand the concept better than.

In addition, various other young talented artist’s work highlighted as they used unique themes and took inspiration from real life to convey a sense of realism in their creations. As, the students presented their creativity by engaging their innovative mediums to highlight the social issues and the problems being faced by women and other segments of the society through their art.

Another outstanding work was presented by Shamsul Arfeen Hashmi. “Essentially, I started painting traditional landscapes in my early years at NCA, but in my final year I tried to break the concept of traditional landscape painting. Instead of making the whole landscape I select one (enlarged) part it and composed it on my canvas. Then after making the series grass, I realized that I was concerned to make different type of long single stroke lines. Because it was very meditative process for me to make lots of lines with fine tiny brushes on large size canvas. So, my work is in between realism and abstraction.”

The writer is an independent curator based in Lahore. She can be reached at mahaaashraf27@gmail.com