Reflecting stimulating evocative vivid memories of the past Amir Raza's paintings in an exhibition titled "Where do we stand" at Full Circle Gallery, Karachi questions where do we stand as a Nation after about seven centuries of independence.
Through his paintings depicting current concerns, anxieties, aspirations, personalities, and movements in an evocative and alluring manner he tried to find the reasons behind this under developed condition of our country. "We must struggle to get our real independence and implement the system of real Islam in our society, which tells us to be peaceful and just. That is how we can make ourselves and our generations worthy for the eternal Heaven," he said.
Every artwork has a story to tell through its multiple layers about people belonging to a distinct segment of society. He produced contemporary art that showed complex conditions and tension between the social roles played by our leaders of the present day. He represented his subjects as figures, texts and symbolic colours and patterns, maps, birds and animals. Some works represent many other symbolically complex and significant political figures of the past.
Each of the paintings told a story that was personal to the artist but was equally rich and flexible so as to lend itself to the lens and individual interpretations of each viewer. Depicting social responsibility and public concerns through critique of regional politics and its links to global politics his paintings conveys meaningful messages. Although he communicates through symbols his attention to details and clear expressions helped others in understanding his view point.
The paintings portrayed issues emanating from personal discourse and his life experiences. Indeed, exploring current socio-political upheavals that reflect on this region and the influence of International policies is handled with care. In some paintings he has really progressed in terms of skill and concept execution. While the content was serious, the imagery was quite funny, and hence balanced the compositions.
The Mughal emperor figures as well as modern politicians can be seen in his paintings thus an amalgamation of past and present. He used images of guns and tanks to address the issue of extremism while the pictures of birds and animals are symbolically used for certain elements in our society. He has visualised very succinctly the entire composition of his paintings to the minute details with humans, objects, shapes, colours, maps animals, birds and coins depicting images of deer and elephants while the parrot and rabbit, rats and bats are also used symbolically.
Interestingly, the themes for his paintings are derived from the circumstances or events that have happened or are likely to occur which involve each viewer in mysterious ways. He seemed to be much inspired by the Mughal era as he said, "Muslim emperors ruled the Asian sub-continent for almost 1000 years. Those 1000 years especially the Mughal era provide the people a state with a society that was free from fears and worries. Generations lived a tension free life in that society".
He wanted our society to follow good examples of the past and build a brighter future. The title of his paintings such as "Golden age", "Transition towards modern times", "Wisdom eye", "Past and present" portrays his will for a better tomorrow.
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