Recently held at the Full Circle Gallery in Karachi, ‘Funky Flora’, an art exhibition showcasing 120 paintings by 66 students of the Canvas Courtyard was a delightful watch. In this regard, You! talks to Ayesha Shariff, the curator of the exhibition...
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Ayesha Shariff is a visual artist and art teacher. Her work relies on a language of personal symbolism that merges realism with surrealism. Shariff takes objects out of their context and suspends them in unfamiliar settings. She uses oil and tempera for miniaturistic detail and translucent effects.
Shariff has exhibited mainly in Pakistan and the USA, while continuing her teaching practice. In addition to shows like Effects of 9/11 on the South Asian Diaspora, Boston Sculptors Gallery, Boston, USA, 2007, and Cultural Passages: Identity made Visible, Creative Arts Workshop, New Haven, USA, 2007, her work has been showcased by universities including Yale and Columbia in the USA.
She has been invited as a speaker and juror by various art institutes and has had the honour of being the guest speaker at a Master’s Tea, Yale University. Shariff has taught at the ACES centre of arts, Connecticut, and at Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, Karachi among other prestigious institutes. She is the founder of the Canvas Courtyard, an on-site and online art studio for children and adults.
‘Funky Flora’ – an art exhibition curated by Shariff, held recently in Karachi, was a refreshing change from the mundane that we see all the time. The annual exhibit showcased 120 paintings by 66 students of the Canvas Courtyard, her open-air art studio for children and adults.
Talking about the exhibit she shares, “I imagined the exhibit as one giant spread of exotic plants and enchanting trees enveloping the Full Circle Gallery. Students had to ‘create’ atmosphere reflective of their own personality and mood. Students learnt to use photographs, artworks and digital imagery as references along with their wild imagination to build their unique compositions.” Usage of light is the soul of any painting. “They used daylight, evening light and night time to depict a variety of moods on canvas - mysterious, quiet, euphoric, playful, haunting, serene and more,” adds Shariff.
This imaginative world of mysterious trees, exotic plants and starry skies was visited by crowds of hundreds including students, parents and grandparents on the opening night. The exhibit was divided into 5 mini-series: ‘Tree of Life’, ‘Tree as Self-portrait’, ‘Deep Blue Nights’ and ‘Enchanting Forests’. The medium used largely was acrylic on canvas but in a range of technique and application: palette knife, toothbrush spray, finger painting and brush painting.
While shedding light on the amazing response she gets from people, Shariff elucidates, “The evening was a pure joy. My little students were ecstatic to see their name in bold, printed on the gallery walls. We had a tsunamic turnout ranging in a few hundreds. The two lanes surrounding the gallery were blocked and some visitors never made it to the gallery in time because of heavy traffic. All I could hear was breathless chatter and roaring laughter.” “However, we had a sombre moment in the midst of this joyful pandemonium - a talk on the power of art, a dua for Palestine and Quran recitation,” adds Shariff.
On what’s next she quips, “This was the second consecutive annual art event of the Canvas Courtyard. We are bringing you new and exciting drawing and painting workshops in 2024. Sky is the limit!”
