Scheherazade Junejo and Babar Moghul contribute to a strong and exciting exhibition at the Full Circle Gallery. Together they created an event that one wished to see several times and follow the thoughts and feelings of the artists.

Scherazade Junejo, who was born and raised in Karachi, went on to join the National College of Arts, Lahore, where she took her BFA thesis with honours in 2009. Working with sculptor Amna Ilyas, Scherazade, she had the opportunity to study human anatomy which is a feature of her work. Currently she is teaching at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, Karachi, and her work has been exhibited and appreciated throughout Pakistan and internationally. As well as working with oils, the artist uses pencil, pen, or graphite to great effect.

About her recent exhibition Scherazade stated:

“This series marks a turning point for my practice.It can best be described as an explosion of colour in my head, onto my canvases; a breakthrough in self-realisation. Colour has always represented a seeping of external influences to me. Here, it has altered the psychological space these figures live in, mutating their surface, extremities and identity, propelling them into an unknown territory of experiences. Such is life. Everything else you already know.”

Scherazade contributes nine new works of art to the show, most of them composed of graceful forms without heads. The artist’s use of colour is matchless, her colours glow from the canvas and the figures are beautiful though headless.

Babar Moghal is a well known Karachi based artist and graphic designer.

A former student of the Karachi School of Art, he was fortunate to be there when the very talented artist Zaheen Ahmed, was his mentor. Zaheen was a very talented man who never got a chance to show his work. One remembers Shahid Sajjad viewing one of Zaheen’s paintings with excitement and insisting he must have time and opportunity to show his work. Sadly Zaheen Ahmad passed away before the opportunity arose, but he is still remembered with admiration by his former pupil.

One remembers viewing the thesis work of Babar Mogul at the KSA, when he related that he was inspired by the music of the group know as `Pink Floyd’.

Much time has passed since those days and Babar Moghul is well known and admired for his unique pictorial language.

Babar Moghul’s statement said, “The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved, but only outgrown.”

It is easier to get satisfaction and meaning through art in youth but as we grow old, our ideas grow old and redundant within ourselves, after a certain period you don’t wait for inspiration. You just get up and start working Blank canvas is a very exciting sight, anything can happen. I draw and paint directly on canvas mostly, and work as long as I like. I believe visual art is a language, but communication occurs (if any) on a subliminal plane. Form does not change anything, the underlying principle is the same. The practice of art provides a measurable space to move without fear and anxiety and exit when you feel like it.

In this collection, Babar Moghul’s subjects are extremely dramatic, deserted vehicles with traces of clotheh covering, in a sepia monotone with in a deserted world. He has included the Mohatta Palace in the collection, dust covered and deserted. The Hindu Gymkhana, which he explained was designed by the architect of the Mohatta Palace. Babar shows us a world without life, a deserted place, symbolised by broken vehicles and empty spaces in a colour that only he can create; living dust. Terrifying but at the same time, thought provoking. •