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Technology of images, blown glass on display today

By Mahtab Bashir

ISLAMABAD: An exhibition of paintings by Ubaid Syed, prints by Anjum Ayub and blown glass by Martin Willems is starting at Nomad Gallery, Saidpur Village, today (Thursday).

During the preview of the exhibition on Wednesday, Ubaid Syed told Daily Times that art was a technology of images. “An artist needs to destroy his own self to fully comprehend the grand design that is manifested in all creations and creatures,” he said.

He said his painting titled ‘Northern Lights’ was about nature. “There is always an element of surprise in nature. It is nature that transforms me into a curious child and awakens in me a sense of oneness with the world,” he said.

Print paintings: In her 20 print paintings, Ajnum Ayub used a complicated medium of aquatint, etching, intaglio, sugar lift, mix medium with etching, knife etching to highlight contemporary historical and social issues. The theme of her print paintings is ‘to live and let live’.

She said, “I paint what I see but I use more than my eyes to see. Memories can be as vivid as objects. Ambience can be as real as landscapes. Moods can be colours. The soul can have a face. Experiences can be rooms that are personal on paper as well as in the mind. I am deeply attracted to and moved by the concerns of the soul. I invite people to open more than their eyes when they view my work,” she said.

Anjum is a graphic designer working for PTV. She says by combining her approach with eternal beauty and values of nature, she tries to create a kind of sanctuary for the soul. “These prints are products of my ideas, styles, spirits, personality and conscience, none of which can be expressed without the other,” she said.

Blown glass: Martin Willems’s 75 pieces of blown glass and stained glass are unordinary. Willems translates his creative passion and critical thinking into intensely collaborative, opulent and monumental blown glass.

His exclusive blown glass vessels are slim at the base and their precariously towering bodies open towards the top.

Willems, a Holland national, described his work as an emotionally reactive one, responding to the fragments of glass and paint. “I started working on ceramics and later developed my interest in blown and stained glass work almost five decades back,” he said.

He said pieces of glass were cut and selected so that internal flaws were well exploited. The f1aws such as bubbles, grits of sand, streaks and variations in thickness refracted the light as it passed through the glass, he said.

Nageen Hyat, the curator of Nomad Gallery, said the exhibition was an international show as all the three artists had exhibited their work all over the world. The exhibition will continue till February 15.

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