An art Gallery in Karachi is showcasing an exhibition of miniature paintings by Lahore based Attiya Shaukat. The show opened on 8th April 2008.
Attiya says: "For me art is a part of my body. To live, is to suffer; to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering. I paint because I need to; my art is a primitive need."
What Attiya says in not poetry; nor is rhetoric. This is how her life is. What came as a tragedy in May 2003, gave a universal meaning to her life and work. She discovered the meaning with the tool of courage and carved a place for herself in the world. She must have suffered moments of depression.
It was just a "flick of a second"- also the title of her mini thesis, when she was working on it in May 2003, Attiya fell down from a height of eight feet when she was mounting a hanging on the wall. The fall changed her life course. An injury to her spine confined her to bed; lying straight, she could see her bandaged feet, a ceiling fan and parts of window or door if she moved her head left or right. She felt total emptiness in the front. Left with this limited world to see, while lying she kept drawing whatever was in sight. Time passed; nature answered her question: "It happened to you because you have been given the exceptional potential to survive with colours in trying conditions."
Attiya's 14 works on display can be felt more than seen. These narrate story of her four vertebras with irreversible injuries leaving her lower limb below knees motionless. She paints with extreme delicacy the four vertebras, broken tissues, ruptured spinal cord, a pair of forceps, a wheelchair, fixtures, the step of the ladder, a pair of socks in bright red and blue and the belly of the ceiling fan, which she had to gaze at while lying still on bed. She uses red to show the hazard of being stuck somewhere in life and is unable to see down the road. There are moments in life when one finds oneself heading towards an alley with a dead end with mist around not knowing where to take the next step. The blue on her canvas refers to vastness around her.
When she was able to sit and paint, her hand became a tool of angelic energy with flawless movements. The viewers can hear a throbbing heart behind her meticulous forms. Her work is strikingly personal and individualistic and yet has a universal appeal for the sobs and pain buried beneath lines.
She was introduced to the Karachi art scene by Chawkandi Art in a group show in 2006. On one of her canvases at Chawkandi vertebras were stringed like flowers, flowing towards an unknown ending like an elegy. At Canvas the dirge has been replaced with hope. A musically running form with minute floral detail runs around a female body which stands on the toe like a ballerina. A young pretty woman, Attiya is hopeful and finds that "today is better than yesterday."