Project Art Divvy and Rossi & Rossi are delighted to present You Selfish Dreamer, an exhibition of artworks by Rabeya Jalil, Heraa Khan, Saba Khan, Veera Rustomji, and Mohsin Shafi.
You Selfish Dreamer is the first of a series of collaborative exhibitions held by Project Art Divvy and Rossi & Rossi. This partnership is geared towards extending support and building interest in a new generation of cutting edge artists from Pakistan.
The title of the exhibition is a phrase from The Glass Menagerie, the 1945 play by Tennessee Williams, which explores the fragile reality of shattered illusions, unfulfilled dreams and relentless memories. Like the characters in Williams’ play, each painting has the multilayered quality of a woven tapestry, both in terms of the artist’s technique and the layers of meaning hidden within the works. The pieces have been embedded in the artist’s reality and embellished with fiction, socio-political critique, and the hazy aura of memory. The resulting collages, installations and paintings are thought provoking, they inspire self-introspection and societal analysis.
Rabeya Jalil’s vivid gestural paintings appear to have been executed with the wild colourful abandon of child-like innocence. These pieces have been influenced by her experiences as an adult, and the different roles an individual is required to adopt, while navigating through a plethora of social scenarios and customs. Inspired by his personal life, experiences and memories, Mohsin Shafi creates intricate, sometimes playful, but always powerful worlds from layers of images and printed materials within his brightly coloured frames, which are reminiscent of Joseph Cornell’s Shadow Boxes.
Saba Khan’s art is often vibrant, satirical and yet deeply perceptive, boldly highlighting social discrepancies and glaring divides. This series of works in You Selfish Dreamer is particularly timely. Khan has been partly propelled by her grand-aunt’s traumatic memories of a girl’s powerless vulnerability during the turbulence of 1947’s partition between India and Pakistan. She presents embroidery on printed fabrics, highlighting some of the difficult challenges continued to be faced by women in contemporary society.
In her art practice, Veera Rustomji analyses the customs of the close-knit, often insular, Parsi community. For this series of works, Rustomji references the game of Mahjong, which is enthusiastically played by her grandmother and her friends. Heraa Khan addresses the seemingly superficial preoccupations of those desperately trying to retain a level of normalcy in their fragile lives. She paints glamorously stylish matrons excessively pampering themselves with indulgent luxuries in vibrant tones punctuated by gold.
The artworks in You Selfish Dreamer reflect the artists’ personal lives, experiences and daily interactions maneuvering through familiar social situations, as they challenge the norms of a society in transition. Each piece presents a story to the viewer.
