A Silent Plea by Saira Wasim
On entering the gallery at Bikaner House, one faces California-based artist Saira Wasim’s canvas titled In Guns We Trust. The clues painted by her are not hard to decipher. With the White House in the background, a mythological devil-like centaur figure, with half-human and half-horse body, is armed with rifles and guns. It seems he would shoot anyone he encounters on the way, serving as a chilling reflection on the gun culture that seems to have plagued America in recent years. Part of the exhibition “Hashiya – The Margin”, the artist from Lahore has painted its borders with the image of a policeman and a child, holding guns in their hands, with the American motto “In God We Trust” twisted to “In Guns We Trust” placed on top of the frame. Wasim says, “I am a mother of three schoolgoing children. In the US, every mom’s biggest nightmare is school shooting and any mom can go to any extent to keep her kids safe. Every year, 1,300 children die from guns and our politicians are incapable of tackling the issue.”
Ten artists, including Alexander Gorlizki, Gulammohammed Sheikh, Nilima Sheikh and Yasir Waqas, have come together to render their interpretation of the “margin”, the central theme of the exhibition. Curator Mamta Singhania, says, “I have been exploring contemporary miniature paintings and have worked with artists influenced by the miniature form. An aspect that has never been explored is the margin. Margin is something that adds, limits and expands and I decided to bring together an artistic response to it through the show.”
Laud the Three Metamorphoses II by Nusra Qureshi
Through his works like Will you take me across!, Waqas combines words from three languages — Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian. By bringing them together, he tries to represent the cultural history of the subcontinent, providing a metaphorical meaning. He says, “Persian and Sanskrit were the languages of the invaders and the invaded, respectively, which got merged and evolved into Urdu and Hindi, which were understood by both communities. Someone unfamiliar with these languages may find them to be almost identical; both share more commonalities than differences.”
While Thiruvananthapuram-based artist V Ramesh has painted saint Ramana Maharshi, Sheikh has Urdu alphabets spread across the canvas, like tiny ants making their way through a barren landscape. The exhibition is on till April 24 at Bikaner House, Pandara Road, Delhi