ertain careers are locked in age limits. A cricketer, footballer, swimmer, wrestler, boxer, gymnast or player of hockey, tennis or squash usually performs best when young. As they advance in years, their stamina declines, reflexes slow down and energy levels go down. Likewise, an actor generally enjoys his/ her stardom, while appearing as a hero or heroine. That is when they command a huge number of fans, followers and admirers. The later period of their careers is spent mostly doing character roles. Same is the case with pop singers, fashion models, etc. Some other professions on the other hand are not so bound to years. Authors, chess players, classical singers, music composers, economists, politicians, teachers, lawyers and visual artists are not required to resist aging. In some instances, experience enhances and expands their practice.

Since age is not a determining or decisive factor for appreciating a professional from these areas, younger practitioners are often at a disadvantage. Prefixes such as young, emerging, fresh, new are carry a derogatory tint, implying that they still have to learn and spend more time to prove their genius and excellence. That is one reason for having young musicians performing first and the eldest at the end, like in a mushaira, which starts with upcoming poets and follows a strict recital order. Even a slight change in the sequence can annoy the aging bards and prompt some of them to refuse to participate.

The reason for establishing such hierarchies and adhering to those lies in the custom of equating maturity in years with the maturity of intellect, ability, creativity and perfection. Due to this mis-belief, some viewers tend to skip exhibitions of young artists, whether solo or group shows. This is also reflected in many galleries’ calendar, in which the lean spans of art business, i.e., summer, months of Ramazan and Muharram and the winter holidays are for upcoming artists.

On my graduation, a professor had informed me, “In art, there is no senior or junior, everyone is a contemporary.” This view is validated when one compares the level of international success of some Pakistani artists in their early 40s with artists having 40 years of experience. Each year, my tutor’s comment resurfaces at the degree shows of various art institutions. The work of some unknown individuals is unexpected, exciting and energetic, hence reassuring about the future of art in Pakistan.

One gets a similar feeling at the new-wave the exhibition of relatively new artists, some recent and past graduates from various art schools, that started on March 31 and ends today (April 14) at Kleido Kontemporary, Lahore.

Like many group exhibitions, some entries out of the 46 (selected following an open call) appear predictable, conventional and rudimentary, but the majority of pieces on display show how artists with a only a few years of experience are exploring new means, mediums and forms to express their ideas about themselves and the world around them. (Actually there is hardly a distance between the external and the inner; because the former affects the latter and the latter shapes the former). Without the baggage of an accepted and expected style, these artists venture into new vocabularies of art making. This freedom is reflected in Fatima Javaid’s Candy Crush, which consists of visuals that can be moved according to the whim of an onlooker, thus the viewer is a participant in the fabrication of artwork. This is akin to the act of reading, which according to some theorists is a phase in completing the text.

Mahad Saddique’s animation, Periscope (2), also keeps a spectator glued to the small screen on which a slim pipe-like concoction keeps rotating, by shifting its two extended ends. The work offers a minimal depiction of nature. The composition is split into two identical/ horisontal stripes; one, light blue, representing the sky; and the other vivid green, suggesting the presence of earth. A similar, minimal approach is found in Asma Tareen’s Lakri say Kaghez, Kaghez sey Lakri, produced with “paper recycled to make paper-wood.” The slightly raised lines of different hues intrigue and invoke a range of interpretations. The materiality evident in the work and its power to steer imagery (meaning) are repeated in Ayan Aftab Hussain’s work. Titled No Signal, it is composed of delicate and precise bands of chamak patti, arranged into circles and rectangles against a black background. The nature of reflective tape of specific shades reminds one of a TV screen with disrupted transmission; hence, the title, No Signal (which alludes to a disrupted flow of information, through every channel’s news hours and current affairs programmes).

Elementary colours seem to be a source of inspiration for Warda Aziz, too. Her triptych Fluorescent Blue, Lemon, Orange Series, consists of the artist’s body postures depicted in pure/ flat hues. Sometimes the body of an artist is significant, especially for a female artist, but often just the existence of body is essential. For example, in Minahil Khan’s Minhas, the cut-out of a male torso in shades of blue and other tints, indicates not only a human, but also the absence of others, since the overlapped parts of other bodies are carved out, signifying the loss of someone who was once physically quite close. Her impressive fabrication of the work adds the sense of discomfort, disorientation and disturbance.

The invisibility of the human is a subject in Sajid Amiri’s Invisible Splendours, a work constructed in layers of fibre mesh, mapping the portrait of a boy. The suspension of physical presence can be felt further in the small oil-on-glass painting of Vania Mazhar. Titled Asleep on Glass, the loosely rendered hazy contours of a man under the white sheets resting on a pillow becomes a residue of sleep, a state in which we are materially at one place, but in our minds transported to somewhere else.

Bodies can move physically and in dreams, but these also become something else, if treated as symbols. Mariyam Rehman has vigorously painted a peeled banana in Your Highness. The fruit, apart from its sexual connotation, signifies a variety of contents and contexts. The fact that the fruit is partially peeled and composed within an oval shaped frame leads its reading as the substitute for a human being, in the process of getting dressed while standing in front of a mirror. Rehman’s magnificently executed surface also hints at another artwork famous for a banana. Comedian (2019) by the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan was a fresh banana (brought from a market) affixed to a wall with duct tape. The piece was sold for $120,000, reverberating a great hype around the world.

The title, Your Highness, could refer to the most talked about recent work of conceptual art, as well as a comment on the anatomy of the art world/ market. The course of representing human substance through symbols is also viewed in Attiya Usman’s Becoming, a delicately produced opaque watercolour on Arches paper. Usman has drawn a cactus (resonating the form of a banana) with small hearts pierced through its thorns. The imagery, communicating the vulnerability of emotions, relationships and bondages, also brings forth an element of resilience, since rather than bleeding, the heart are growing green stems and leaves. The intelligent use of pictorial elements and space turns a simple visual into an extraordinary painting.

A similar path is visible in Ubaid Tariq’s Untitled II (Ultraviolet ink on metal sheet). From a distance, the work looks like an abstract composition, but a longer contact reveals its link with religious posters. The artist has picked formats of these popular prints and translated them into shapes and marks; yet one is able to guess their orientation in faith and culture. The work can relate to our habit of locating meaning – based on our conditioning, choice, limitations within objects, events, acts which do not necessarily contain these. Yet many people are so certain about their interpretation that they are prepared to eliminate those having a different understanding.

The exhibition offers a wide range of concepts, concerns and techniques. The fact of all artworks being small and on a manageable scale can be ignored, considering the practical and logistic issues in terms of transporting, storing and executing the work, reaffirming that in the realm of art, it is the idea that matters, not the size.

The writer is an art critic, a curator and a professor at the School of Visual Arts and Design, at the Beaconhouse National University, Lahore.