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Humaira’s sculptures sing ‘Lullaby’ in crushing times

By Mahtab Bashir

ISLAMABAD: An exhibition of wooden sculptures at Khas Gallery by Humaira Abid was not just a show of her immaculate working skills, but also a display of fresh perspectives on everyday life.

The exquisite display titled ‘Lullaby’ started from Tuesday, showcasing vibrant contemporary creative illustrations of day-to-day ordinary things, focusing on issues of gender sensitivity and frailty of human existence.

Humaira’s work has the uncanny quality to lift the banal and the commonplace and reinvent it with interesting twists to address something equally ordinary.

“My sculptures conform to the premise that art should inspire humour, surprise and evoke wonder and that it should be about things that really matter in a culture,” said Humaira.

She said her current show focused on basic human attitudes towards fellow beings, depicted through familiar patterns, signs, symbols and objects in aesthetically pleasing imagery.

An NCA product, Humaira graduated with honours in the year 2000. She is very adept in miniature painting and extends the same mindset of intensive labour, precision, high finish and fine aesthetic values to her sculptural pieces. The result is an exquisite array of forms with a distinct air of completeness and maturity.

Exploring gender equation with humour and affection, the artist’s sculptural expression has always been thoughtful. The current series, witty, insightful and endearingly candid, reaffirms her ability to imbue the commonplace and the banal with perceptive metaphorical content.

Using wood as a medium of expression, Humaira accords the substance the respect it deserves. Constructing or carving mainly with shisham, she prefers to follow the grain of the wood and its natural coloration. A sculpture’s general properties include its cuts, outer shape, use of interior space and the relationship of its shape to gravity and movement.

Humaira has turned ordinary objects like pillows, sink, slates, folded shirts and ‘kurtas’, sewing machines, razors, shoes, feeder, baby pacifier, and other such ordinary stuff into vibrant art ensemble with her superb and refined creative skills.

In her first solo display in Islamabad, she has shown herself as the only female among the batch of new aspirants redefining this genre today. Her gender seems to have had a direct bearing on her work ethos. There is no threatening aggression in her sculptures; the feminine touch has lent it a certain grace and charm of poetic beauty to her work.

The show will continue till November 26.

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