M. Shafique Rana

Ali Abbas is a leading master in watercolor. He has won several awards worldwide and has participated in several juries and workshops. Watercolor as a medium is difficult to work with but Ali Abbas’s artworks, each a masterpiece, exhibit the artist’s ease and confidence. Each of his artworks are intensely detailed capturing the viewers attention.

The late Mohammad Kazim was a renowned painter, printmaker and calligrapher. Kazim gained popularity for his Indus Valley and Mohenjo-Daro series of artworks and his depictions of women from that era. He would mold the figures with his hands using mulmul cloth and handmade paper and vegetable dyes. The figures would almost protrude in a 3D effect while the colors would be textured in soft hues.

A painter, an art restorer, art scholar, film maker, art photographer, TV anchor, Founder President of The Visual and Performing Arts Forum Pakistan (NGO), Ashkal is an adept and highly gifted artist. His mentor, Iqbal Mehdi left a lasting impression on him and encouraged Ashkal to explore figurative art. His artworks exhibit straight lines and angles in figurative forms and intelligent use of vibrant colors blended in soft hues.

Shaista is a self-taught artist who believes that an artist draws inspiration from beauty in human form and from expressions. Her canvases encapsulate women, nature’s most beautiful and complete creation and encaptures their great strength in tolerating pain with a smile. The pigeons or musical instruments such as a flute or sitar in her painting are symbolic of freedom of speech and a woman’s desire to be free. The jewelry on the women while giving the deception of beauty are actually symbolic of chains and restrains, which restrict them from being free.