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Gallery Wendi Norris

March 5 - March 30, 2009

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161 Jessie Street San Francisco, CA 94105
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Contemporary Miniature Paintings Attiya Shaukat, Step By Step I
Gallery Reception: March 05, 2009, 6:00 to 9:00 pm In the 1980s the National College of the Arts in Lahore, Pakistan revived the ancient traditional styles of painting from the Mughal, Deccani, Pahari, Rajput and Persian schools. In keeping with these traditions, artists are trained in a precise, exquisitely detailed style of painting that begins with the meticulous crushing and preparing of pigments and other materials, such as hand made paper and hand threaded brushes. Madassar Manzoor and Attiya Shaukat are two up and coming artists from this school, both working with contemporary and often deeply conflicted themes. Together, the artists will contribute a total of fifteen new miniature paintings. This exhibition marks their first showing in the United States. Shaukat's work often features a single image placed carefully on patterned or gridded paper. The imagery tends towards hard angled geometries while conjuring associations such as a twisted spine, wheelchair or some other imagery that relates to a crippling accident she suffered while an art student. This accident and its subsequent influence on her art have garnered comparisons to the life and career of Frida Kahlo. Manzoor's themes are often more subtle, revealing themselves once time and place add context. For example, his most recent body of work presents deep hues of rich, green and yellow organic forms. Upon closer inspection and after viewing an accompanying timeline the viewer discovers that the entire body of work is an outpouring of turbid emotions following the assassination of Pakistan’s slain leader Benazir Bhutto.
Contemporary Miniature Paintings Mudassar Manzoor, No. 21