The entire exhibition titled 'Romancing Sindh' at Full Circle Gallery, Karachi speaks of the diversity and vibrancy of the culture of Sindh. The show covers every aspect of Sindh culture displaying typical Sindhi furniture, mirrors, musical instruments, Sindhi topi, ajrak, ralli, dresses and beautiful traditional vases and pots along with photographs of Sindh's personalities and paintings about Sindh's culture and traditions as well as its heritage. Thus the gallery exudes culture of Sindh in a stylish and traditional manner.
The art exhibition is part of the celebration of Sindh Festival 2014 and portrays truly the title of the exhibition. The gallery reflects the Sindh's culture and tradition in all the things displayed from paintings to dresses. Different rooms are dedicated to various Sindh's cultures. A room showcases the photographs of the legends of Sindh including traditional music icons, such as Abida Parveen and Allan Fakir. Another room was dedicated solely to the Bhutto family while a room displays the traditional cultural dresses with a touch of modernity.
Paintings of different artists reflecting the Sindh's culture adorn the walls of the gallery. The artists apply vivacious colours in their own way. Each painting has a detail harmonious composition with well balanced pleasing hues of blue, green, red, yellow and ochre.
Mehtab seems to be much inspired by the heritage of Mohenjodaro. He relates today's woman with an old civilisation of Mohenjodaro in his paintings. He got attracted by the fabulous lifestyle of those ancient times. Therefore he decided to highlight our relationship to the past He has done figurative descriptive paintings to enhance the importance of heritage in our lives.
While elaborating his work he said, "Before starting this series I visited Mohenjodaro to have a first hand understanding and knowledge of that time so that I can paint it with a real feeling. Knowing something through pictures and actually being there are two different things both are different experiences and therefore I decided to see for myself the old heritage and then portray what I feel and learn from that ancient place."
The object and the subject diffuse with each other in his paintings creating an aura of mystery between past and present. The bull, dancing girl, Priest King and ancient scripts are symbolically used in the background of the paintings showing a connection of the present world with the past.
Many artists have been inspired by the rural life of Sindh and portrayed it in their paintings Ali Abbas Jafri is one of those artists but his style is different in a way that he got inspired only by the nomadic women from rural Sindh. Their cultural norms give them wisdom of life and Ali's work reflects their sensitive and thought provoking life.
Imran Zaib also portrays women of Sindh he specially portray the hard life of women living in deserts of Sindh - Thar and Cholistan. The daily chores are painted beautifully with natural emotions. He augmented the desert mood in the paintings by applying warm colours. He makes sure that each character in his paintings shows its individuality and uniqueness showing simple expressions of our daily life - uncertainty, sufferings, hopes and dreams.
Beside paintings of Sindhi women other paintings include works by Imran Soomro's intermixing portrait of Benazir Bhutto and the Mona Lisa, Amin Gulgee's portrait of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
The exhibition was also a visual representation of the transition of traditional Sindhi textiles to modernity. The idea was to revive the long forgotten old textile works and materials. One of the attractions of the exhibition was colourful women dresses displayed at the gallery thus revealing the evolution of textiles in Sindh. The exhibition covers textiles from the ajrak and chunri to the ralli. Ajrak is the main fabric of Sindh which accompany people in every event of life happy or sad that is from birth and marriage to death. Ralli and chunri is a must cloth item in every household of Sindh. Various hues of basic colours surrounds a mannequin wearing a skirt made of a variety of Sindhi textiles, such as ajrak and chunri is the central display of dresses.
The main objective of the exhibition was to present as well as celebrate not only Sindh's culture but also its ambience, its people, its lifestyle. Thus representing all flavours of life in Sindh from music and poetry to social culture and hence highlighting and promoting many facets of Sindh.
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