Echoes of the Sublime: A Journey Through Ephemeral Landscapes

The artists showcasing in Khaas Contemporary’s recent exhibition titled “Ephemeral Encapsulated” have taken on the task of visualising the personal and intangible through spatial explorations in a diverse range of mediums and compositions. Curated by Zobia Yaqoob, who has mentored the artists during her teaching tenure at the National College of Arts Lahore, the exhibition features works by the following artists: Adnan Ali Umrani, Hudabiya Sarwar, Saleena Shahid, and Urwa Tul Wosqa. Viewers are invited on a journey through sublime landscapes, moving from exterior to interior spaces and delving into deeper psychological reflections intimately tied to the human experience.

At first glance, Adnan Ali Umrani’s charcoal drawings appear to be monochromatic observational depictions of street views, urban infrastructure, and train stations, where the movement of people commuting seamlessly transitions into a labyrinth of interconnected landscapes. The panoramic format and meticulous attention to detail seen in the triptych “Taw’weel Safar” reveal the influence of photography as a medium of experiencing the environment. In “Hammersmith Line,” the rushing trains frame the central staircase, where figuration elements are gentler, slower, and impressionistic. There is a stillness and silence captured in these works that cancel out the city noise from our daily recollection. The charcoal texture is reminiscent of the grain and luminance of analog film photography. The subtle colour gradations within “The Junction” can be read as white noise, allowing viewers to feel transported into the meditative and transcendent moment in viewing these otherwise overlooked and ignored cityscapes.

The works of Hudabiya Sarwar pull apart spaces until each brushstroke is separated into individual building blocks of colour as seen in “In-between”; the plexiglass acts as a translucent surface allowing light to pass through the gaps. The formation of a visual metaphor for deconstructing personal experiences, by the time the artist reveals “Echoes,” the multidirectional energy of colour and light climaxes to a rhythmic abstraction.  Hudabiya’s pieces draw viewers into a surreal free fall, infusing her compositions with a depth of field that allows the viewer to enter the urban sphere where a recognisable “nescafe” anchors the composition. We can start to see the embedded figures boarding a train or the moving bus and street sign in “Whispers of Wanderings” and “Fleeting Impressions” starting to understand that the artist is capturing her experience of the city in these works.

The experience of viewing cityscapes is deepened by Urwa Tul Wosqa’s series of cyanotype prints that serve as windows or pavements where the viewer can pause and reflect on the naturalistic motifs of fallen leaves that are an essential part of enduring the city. Through the series “Baja beel bahar,” which consists of five parts, the viewer can walk along a path of blue. These closeup portraits of foliage are serene moments of light and shadow that mirror the serenity of nature. Acting as blue colour fields, they hold the fleeting memories of viewing trees and green spaces between urban surroundings. The works have been installed between Umrani and Sarwar’s artworks creating a transition that adds weight and gravity to the overall display. Viewers can associate the deep blue with twilight skies or even the ocean floor where vastness is unfathomable. Retaining the original silhouette of the leaves becomes a powerful intervention of form that cuts through the deep blue hues much like a memory or a feeling that emerges from the unknown surfacing as a revelation.

The standalone wall of the gallery displays works of Saleena Shahid, immediately recognisable as a family feature wall as seen in many domestic homes. Works like “Bagh-e-Jinnah” and “I do” have a vintage car as the main protagonist transporting viewers into their childhood memories where such familial experiences were central to our sense of self. The artist gradually pulls the viewer into an interior space yet deliberately casts distortions as seen in “Ratiggan Road wala ghar” and “Many More” creating an emotional rendering of an old memory. The viewer can project their personal history onto these scenes as they capture the essence of memories. In “Muklava,” the single female figure is wearing festive attire with embellishments and posing in what appears to be the family home garden; this inter-generational echo rings with our cultural signature of ancestry, there is compassion and endearment in “Muklava” that has a transportative effect on the viewer. Her artistic process is a relentless pursuit of capturing something beyond mere memory, bringing the past and present to the foreground. Immersive yet detached, her works invite viewers to navigate the complex interplay of emotions and memories.

Through the lens of Adnan Ali Umrani’s urban landscapes, Saleena Shahid’s nostalgic distortions, Hudabiya Sarwar’s surreal cityscapes, and Urwa Tul Wosqa’s contemplative cyanotype prints, viewers are transported into realms where personal experiences intersect with universal themes of identity, memory, and transformation. As viewers engage with these thought-provoking works, they are invited to contemplate the transient nature of existence, the beauty of impermanence, and the power of art to evoke emotion and provoke thought.