Director Statement
We at a-rt.uk recognize that the world we live in is very different from the one in which we first began to collaborate on this project a few years ago, with the new normal, we are so excited to present our first-ever online exhibition “Journey Within”
As a contemporary art gallery director, I have a responsibility to continuously strive to promote the young emerging talent. We are extremely proud to showcase the amazing, thoughtful & exquisite artworks of the four talented and skilled artists from Pakistan.
Collectively and individually, we remain committed to our aim which is to represent, project, amplify, adorn and downright worship unrecognized brilliant virtuosos and show their work to the whole world until they are a well-recognized name in the art circles and one day perhaps become a household name or pride of a nation.
“Artists’ best interests are in our hearts. Our deeds and this marvellous place is a testament to that.”
Shahjahan Bozdar – Founder Director – a-rt.uk Gallery London
Curator Statement
A-rt.uk is delighted to present “Journey Within” a thought-provoking show by four very talented emerging artists. We are extremely proud to continue our tradition of highlighting conceptual art by providing a platform to Emaan Fatima, Ali Hamza, Khadija-tul-Kubra and Zainab Zulfiqar.
These four artists explore the layered undercurrents which surround societal and personal interactions which filter down into an individual’s existence. Each artist has used various mediums of miniature, painting, drawing and printmaking and have brought us a very powerful show.
Eman has created a visual depiction using found objects and spaces, she has used shutter as a metaphor to create a distortion between public and private. Ali Hamza’s work is based on creating, finding and embarking on a journey to find his own identity. He challenges his limits and explores the broad canvas beyond its horizon. Khadija has portrayed an understanding of her own identity by using paint as the language to share her experiences with the viewer. Zainab’s works cultivate a fantastical narrative through her drawings, which are highly inspired by Persian and Lucknow miniatures based on narration and stylization. She creates contorted figures and spaces which merge into each other and represent disassociation.
Noor Fatima – Curator – a-rt.uk Gallery London
Artists Statements
Eman Fatima
My work is based on the idea of free Association, I am exploring the idea through writings and drawings. What fascinates me is the movement and energy during the working process, my work focuses on the distorted public and private spaces. Gradually I created my own visual representation of freedom of speech using found available spaces and materials. I started using shutter references as a base to evolve my idea. The shutter separates the public and private, it itself is a public canvas on which people express their thoughts and a means to send messages. To separate the public and private I am using shutter as a metaphorical base to express my thoughts freely and to create distortion for the viewer.
Just like thoughts, ideas are spontaneous and unfiltered. In my works I used stickers also, as children we are more spontaneous and freely express our views and the stickers brings a sense of nostalgia and represents a sense of joy, which I experienced and felt as I recalled while I was in the moment of creating.
Given the current situation, where we are living in lockdown again and again my latest works give the viewers a glimpse of my private thoughts as a person living in lockdown with the hope to go outside.
Seeing lockdown everywhere and being in isolation i continue to start throwing my thoughts and experiences on my canvas with images and writings.
Ali Hamza
Today, we live in a creative world where everything and everyone is busy in its own, making its own mark. My work is based on creating, finding, and making a mark which can be my own identity, challenging my limits and exploring it freely and boldly. Nature has always been a great inspiration for me. For this purpose, I work in mix medium.
Khadija-tul-Kubra
Our observations are uniquely distinct from one another. We’re set apart just by the way we observe and in understanding these differences, we become more capable of understanding our personal identity.
During the process of exploring my personal identity, I realized how for me, my family has had a great impact on who I am today so for my current works, I dug up an archive of family photographs starting from 1940s and studied my cultural references, interests and opinions while keeping the essence of the photographs intact.
I did so by using specific focal points in my paintings and using paint as my main language to create moods according to each painting. My use of strokes and colour palettes were intentionally my main sources used to differentiate from mere photographs to how I personally view them and to share the message to my viewers.
In my work, I tend to reflect my opinions regarding how I feel about various normalized scenarios, exploring intimacy, culture and heritage while providing the utmost importance to our own individual perspectives.
Zainab Zulfiqar
My work revolves around ritualistic flashbacks, as well as coping with the invasions of safe spaces, and how the documentation of these instances affects an individual. I am particularly invested in how negative nostalgia has contributed to changing my experiences of space, time, and memory. I remember the first time it hit me, I was working on a project-based around Tracey Emin’s work “my bed”, and felt so uncomfortable and familiar with the feeling of despising my own room. A room that possessed evidence and history of generational trauma and memory. In these moments, I realized how disassociated I had become by my own past that when I was finally confronted with it, it held me, hostage, without warning.
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I have tried to come to terms with trauma by considering the absurd in the mundane; how these everyday sounds, muscle memory, places, realities, and emotions weave together to become an absurd emotional reality that can trigger the past easily with no suspicion. This is why I have started cultivating a sort of fantastical narrative through my drawings, which are inspired by Persian and Lucknow miniature based on storytelling and stylization. This is also achieved by creating figures and spaces that are distorted, converging into each other, and at times showing blocks of disassociation. While also using video art with juxtaposed/ overlapping sounds to investigate the meaning of living through familiar surroundings but still being alienated. Since the very act of stylization has made the process much more palatable, not only for myself but also for the viewer.
The family unit is also something I am investigating; how it can come from a source of generational trauma that is never addressed. While making each individual live in a nuclear heteronormative system, completely isolated due to the social and cultural maintenance of appearances of perfection and silence.
I refuse to look at trauma only through clerical eyes, but want to divulge into the pains of researching into my own past as well as my personal history, and how generational trauma is inescapable, while simultaneously accepting the shreds of evidence of anger, pain, and the tributes that are being made in the process. This is why a big part of my process at times is to work with washes and written text since it enhances the safe space within my own world that I am trying to build.