Tenth/Eleventh Paper by Imran Mir
Text by: Maria Aslam
Photography by: Akram S. Paul
After a long time an exhibition that breaks new ground in cerebral art – Imran Mir’s Tenth/Eleventh Paper – opened at VM Art Gallery in Karachi. The sensitively minimalistic approach coupled with unprecedented large canvases, the largest one being twenty six feet by seven feet, was an exhilarating visual experience.
And a treat that tickled the taste buds of the mind.
But breaking new ground is not something new to Imran Mir, ever since he began to paint and sculpt in the seventies. He has constantly created his own rules and then in the next series of paintings, broken these same rules to move on to another level. For him repetition is death for an artist. To constantly grow and evolve and move ahead is his credo.
It is important to trace Imran’s growth, that is, know where he is coming from, in order to gauge where he has arrived in the current work. He began in the seventies with solid surfaces in muted monochromatic tones, which were the hallmark of his show held at Atelier BM. He exhibited a series of paintings with solid grey and purple surfaces punctuated with the finest of almost fluorescent green, black or purple lines. One painting which drew attention had a tap in the middle of the painting with a hose pipe attached to it.
In the eighties he offered canvases of pastel amorphous clouds with black beams floating on this background, defying the laws of gravity inspite of their solid, apparently heavy appearance. This whole visual was held together with a delicate yet definite border of bright rainbow colours. Along with these, he displayed a wooden sculpture, in this case a collection of black squares in sets of four to make the pyramid when placed together. The cubes were moveable and invited the viewer to change their positions to create a new sculpture each time.
The Sixth Paper on Modern Art at Haroon House had vibrant geometrical formulas resolved on solid ground. Widening circles and squares painted with the precision drawing. Part of the exhibition again was a sculpture comprising one foot by one foot brightly painted square cubes which were stacked in the middle of the gallery space for the viewers to walk through and move around, to stack and re-stack the cubes at will, to form their own sculpture from the artist’s sculpture. This was interactive art redefined. In the nineties Imran made some metal grid sculptures, a precursor of this work?
Critics who have followed Imran’s work are continuously surprised by what he has to offer each time he exhibits. This show at the VM was a surprise too. On a larger scale, according to Robert Morris “simplicity of form is not necessarily simplicity of experience”. This could be a good enough definition of Imran’s work as well. Where Imran’s paintings appear simple, therein lies their depth.
The paintings offered in the current work, have illusionary, inorganic forms, which seem to be drawn from the inner recesses of his subconscious. Surrealistic and defying description. Full of energetic movement that puzzles the eye and delights at the same time. For example, at the VM show, the painting titled Composition number 3 featured, on a blue expanse a vibrant red ball teetering on the edge of a rectangular multidimensional receptacle, vibrating and pulsating. One was left to wonder, whether it was bursting out of this space or falling into its depths? And a bulbous grid like form floating weightlessly in the same painting challenged our mind to new games. This ability to make the weighty look weightless is a thread of continuity that has been observed in his work; in some form or the other.
This painting was offset by yet another mammoth artwork, with a huge ring spinning on a shaded black surface tempered with shades of red, which divides the canvas in an almost horizon-like manner making you feel you are taking a peek at some portion of the universe not yet discovered by mankind. But his work cannot be likened to sci-fi by a far chance. That would be very simplistic and naïve. And it neither does the viewer nor the artist justice. In Imran’s art everything is the as is, the extremely serious activity of cerebral outpouring of an artistic imagination. It should be approached with caution and interest, as such.
Two smaller paintings done in black on white canvas are meant to be an indication of the new road the artist may be taking as they are a little removed from, although a continuation of, the work on show; both in size as well as thought process. And no one can accuse Imran only of doing outsized canvases only, as these are one foot by one foot squares in a composition again of modest size.
Why has the artist called his exhibition Tenth/Eleventh paper? All his past exhibitions have been called “Papers”. Because he feels that working on a show such as this is like working on a paper or thesis. Taking a subject, researching it, resolving it and then presenting it in a logical manner in the form of a series of paintings.
Artists like Imran Mir march to their own drummer, not motivated by market forces or static, time honored exercises which pass for abstract art. Therein lies the dynamic change and growth we all look for in a truly cerebral artist. In challenging himself he challenges the viewer to break out of the mould.
Photography by: Akram S. Paul
After a long time an exhibition that breaks new ground in cerebral art – Imran Mir’s Tenth/Eleventh Paper – opened at VM Art Gallery in Karachi. The sensitively minimalistic approach coupled with unprecedented large canvases, the largest one being twenty six feet by seven feet, was an exhilarating visual experience.
And a treat that tickled the taste buds of the mind.
But breaking new ground is not something new to Imran Mir, ever since he began to paint and sculpt in the seventies. He has constantly created his own rules and then in the next series of paintings, broken these same rules to move on to another level. For him repetition is death for an artist. To constantly grow and evolve and move ahead is his credo.
It is important to trace Imran’s growth, that is, know where he is coming from, in order to gauge where he has arrived in the current work. He began in the seventies with solid surfaces in muted monochromatic tones, which were the hallmark of his show held at Atelier BM. He exhibited a series of paintings with solid grey and purple surfaces punctuated with the finest of almost fluorescent green, black or purple lines. One painting which drew attention had a tap in the middle of the painting with a hose pipe attached to it.
In the eighties he offered canvases of pastel amorphous clouds with black beams floating on this background, defying the laws of gravity inspite of their solid, apparently heavy appearance. This whole visual was held together with a delicate yet definite border of bright rainbow colours. Along with these, he displayed a wooden sculpture, in this case a collection of black squares in sets of four to make the pyramid when placed together. The cubes were moveable and invited the viewer to change their positions to create a new sculpture each time.
The Sixth Paper on Modern Art at Haroon House had vibrant geometrical formulas resolved on solid ground. Widening circles and squares painted with the precision drawing. Part of the exhibition again was a sculpture comprising one foot by one foot brightly painted square cubes which were stacked in the middle of the gallery space for the viewers to walk through and move around, to stack and re-stack the cubes at will, to form their own sculpture from the artist’s sculpture. This was interactive art redefined. In the nineties Imran made some metal grid sculptures, a precursor of this work?
Critics who have followed Imran’s work are continuously surprised by what he has to offer each time he exhibits. This show at the VM was a surprise too. On a larger scale, according to Robert Morris “simplicity of form is not necessarily simplicity of experience”. This could be a good enough definition of Imran’s work as well. Where Imran’s paintings appear simple, therein lies their depth.
The paintings offered in the current work, have illusionary, inorganic forms, which seem to be drawn from the inner recesses of his subconscious. Surrealistic and defying description. Full of energetic movement that puzzles the eye and delights at the same time. For example, at the VM show, the painting titled Composition number 3 featured, on a blue expanse a vibrant red ball teetering on the edge of a rectangular multidimensional receptacle, vibrating and pulsating. One was left to wonder, whether it was bursting out of this space or falling into its depths? And a bulbous grid like form floating weightlessly in the same painting challenged our mind to new games. This ability to make the weighty look weightless is a thread of continuity that has been observed in his work; in some form or the other.
This painting was offset by yet another mammoth artwork, with a huge ring spinning on a shaded black surface tempered with shades of red, which divides the canvas in an almost horizon-like manner making you feel you are taking a peek at some portion of the universe not yet discovered by mankind. But his work cannot be likened to sci-fi by a far chance. That would be very simplistic and naïve. And it neither does the viewer nor the artist justice. In Imran’s art everything is the as is, the extremely serious activity of cerebral outpouring of an artistic imagination. It should be approached with caution and interest, as such.
Two smaller paintings done in black on white canvas are meant to be an indication of the new road the artist may be taking as they are a little removed from, although a continuation of, the work on show; both in size as well as thought process. And no one can accuse Imran only of doing outsized canvases only, as these are one foot by one foot squares in a composition again of modest size.
Why has the artist called his exhibition Tenth/Eleventh paper? All his past exhibitions have been called “Papers”. Because he feels that working on a show such as this is like working on a paper or thesis. Taking a subject, researching it, resolving it and then presenting it in a logical manner in the form of a series of paintings.
Artists like Imran Mir march to their own drummer, not motivated by market forces or static, time honored exercises which pass for abstract art. Therein lies the dynamic change and growth we all look for in a truly cerebral artist. In challenging himself he challenges the viewer to break out of the mould.
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