KARACHI: The VM Art Gallery is hosting ‘Memories and Metaphors’, an exhibition of paintings by Ghulam Hussain, Karen Frank, Quratulain Babar, Hira Mustafa and Tasleem Jalap.

All the five artists, graduates of the National College of Arts (NCA) Lahore, are very much connected to their memories and fantasies, the core of their emotions. They all have some stories behind their work and they recall their tough time through diverse expressions.

Artist Hussain’s work noticeably shows his life in jail when he was put behind bars, under an allegation of murder at the age of fifteen, where he used to weave palm-leave mats with the other prisoners. His paintings reflect how a teenage boy felt facing difficulties in the jail while thinking about his fellows who were enjoying their lives in the colourful world. He expresses himself in an organised manner in his art along with his weaving skills juxtaposed in layers of magazine paper, creating abstract images. On the other hand Frank symbolises minorities in Pakistan, and her work is an epitome to the time when she was suffering financial crises during her final thesis at NCA.

To arrange money for her thesis she started working with used items and materials she picked. According to Frank, “Being part of a minority in a country changes your perception. Things that seem normal to others don’t seem as much a part of the norm. My work is basically about women, because that is the lot I am most familiar with, whether in the house or out, I am surrounded by a number of impressive, amusing and astonishing women and even men of course.” She has painted women with large, bulging eyes, as she considers eyes to be the most expressive. Her recent works are closely related to the news and its propagation, in which she inspects her surroundings through a specific lens and criticises society norms.

Also highlighting women is Tasleem Jalap, who shows women as vulnerable and exposed to multiple dangers everywhere in the country. In her painting ‘Bazeecha-e-atfal hai dunya merai aagai’, a woman clad in a crimson drape is standing with one foot on a tree’s root, perhaps foreseeing or criticising the society for its watchful stance, waiting to pounce on even a minor slip.

Another artist to take up women’s issues is Babar, who feels herself confined and bound between the ordinary everyday routine and wants to escape from reality, but finds reality to be a solid fact in her path. She depicts women surrounded by the machinery of the society that functions because of a woman’s energy, but refuses to give her the due respect and care. She questions the risk a woman is put through while she is enclosed in a bottle like an everyday item in a ‘Jar’ within the confines of a kitchen.

Meanwhile, Hira Mustafa is devoted to portray her personal expressions with a mixture of abstract and realistic concepts. With a clear perception about her work, she sees the two things, negativity and positivity, coming from nature as unplanned and spontaneous. All in all, the exhibit has every ingredient one may desire from a group show, and will continue until August 7.Daily times.