lose contact with mountains – as with people - often reveals stuff about them one had been oblivious to having seen them only from a distance. As one digs deeper one may discover rocks and minerals not visible on the surface, some easily recognisable, others transmuted. Hamra Abbas set herself the uncommon task of exploring a mountain (easier arguably than analysing a human),to find, show and share its hidden constituents, mainly lapis lazuli, a stone known for its unmatched appeal and incomparable value.

At her solo exhibition, Water, Plants and Other Ecologies (curated by Imran Qureshi at The Barracks, Lahore, from August 12 to September 9), one comes across mountains in many forms and incarnations. These mountains do not consist of rocks alone, but also include vegetation, trees, water channels and snow. In a simplified representation, a mountain can be a metaphor for a difficult utopia. A city dweller may sometimes wonder about the mountaineers’ passion. They often come from far off places and despite being aware of the many risks associated with such expeditions, climb difficult peaks such as K-2. At the heart of some of these hazardous ventures, probably lies a dream to transcend the earth’s pull and levitate into heaven.

Semitic and some other religions promise paradise to their followers. However, descriptions of the place differ. For Muslims, it is a garden rich in fruits and flowers set close to rivers and meadows. This vision has been regularly reproduced in literature, art and architecture, i.e., gardens, mausoleums, carpets, illustrated manuscripts and miniature paintings. Arabs are often associated with desert living, but the City of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) was surrounded by hills and the early revelation of the Quran “took place in a cave called Hira, located on Jabal al-Noor near Mecca.” Therefore, mountains have a special significance in the Islamic thought. Both paradise and a mountain represent a higher destiny/ destination. One typically walks up the stairs of a temple, mosque, cathedral or synagogue in an attempt to detach oneself from lowly soil and start a skyward journey. The ritual removal of shoes when entering mosques could arguably be related to this notion.

Hamra Abbas has been addressing, interpreting and exploring Islamic thought and its manifestation in tangible forms for quite some time. Her search has led her to traditional mosaics and pietra dura work found in monuments throughout the Muslim world, including in Lahore. Drawing inspiration from the past, Abbas has created sculptures with stone inlay – small as well as huge; flat as well as three-dimensional. Art pieces fabricated using this technique and featured in her solo show steer a spectator towards spaces, concepts and narratives beyond the physical location, supporting British writer Gabriel Josipovici’s observation that “the role of all art was to lead us forward to a place or a form of life we are all in search of but cannot by ourselves attain.”

The journey to another level or another realm is made possible with her use of stone, mostly lapis lazuli, which has been extracted for centuries from Badakhshan. Victoria Finlay, the author of Colour, looking at the substance mined in that area, was surprised to see stars in it. “All lapis lazuli contains speckles of iron pyrite – fool’s gold – and it makes the best stones look like a firmament. No wonder some people think it is holy: it is a rock picture of the universe.” Or heaven, due to its predominant rich ultramarine blue!

Lapis lazuli blue, once worth more than gold in Europe; was applied in the costumes of Jesus Christ, Virgin Mary and royalty (hence the term ‘royal blue’). Hamra Abbas has chosen the substance to immortalise the hardened faces of those existing on the margins of history and history of art.

In her art Hamra Abbas combines the concepts of heaven and some elements of paradise, inserting finely cut imagery of luminous lapis lazuli in uneven blocks of the same stone –comprising minerals such as deep blue (lazurite) and delicate traceries of white and gold (silicates, calcite and iron pyrite). The top sides of all four stones, flattened and polished, reveal the stems and leaves of single plants (olive, pomegranate, jacaranda, bougainvillea). The inner space of The Barracks compliments the materialistic origin of the exquisitely processed pieces. Here a visitor has to go underground in order to access the art, an analogy for the lapis lazuli mined from a quarry in Afghanistan.

A mountain usually generates two types of movement: climbing up and descending into a pit/ cave. Abbas’s Garden 3 and Garden 4 allude to the former route; depicting the outcome of a passage in the form of lush green meadows, branches carrying cherry blossoms and fully laden apple trees in front of snow-clad mountains. In a sense, the landscape resembles the idea of the garden of paradise. Both are beautiful, perfect and require insurmountable effort to reach there. Interestingly, the exhibition space is situated in the middle of a public garden. The scheme of producing these 6x10 feet artworks in stone (lapis lazuli, marble, serpentine, calcite, jasper, granite) transformed the appearance and character of a hard, stiff, and laborious material to resemble a fluent, elastic, playful and lyrical medium. The illusion – and pleasure – are generated by Abbas’s meticulous selection of shapes, tones and tints of the stones that met optically to flow like paint.

In a number of other art pieces too, the liquid is suggested through magnificent use of stone. Labelled River Studies, these, almost, abstract patterns in black and white are based on glacial river waters, which the artist “recently documented in Hunza region of Gilgit-Baltistan.” She explains, “My interest in water bodies stems from my earlier waterfall abstractions, from my Garden of Paradise series.”

The exhibition’s title, Water, Plants and Other Ecologies, indicates the state, situation and balance of nature. The various items refer to separate elements of the environment, coexisting in a desirable harmony: Fruits, flowers and trees spread across hilly landscapes; water derived from the mountain glaciers; botanical forms embedded (fossil-like) in raw rocks of lapis lazuli; the ultramarine pigment extracted from a mountain and mixed with water (along with Gum Arabic) draw a sensitive and delicate portrait of the people of mountainous regions.

Features in the series of 10 works on wasli paper (Porters) are rendered in lapis lazuli ultramarine pigment adopting a “14^th Century technique from Italy. Ultramarine was the finest and most expensive blue used by Renaissance painters.” Abbas has picked the colour “to render the faces of high altitude porters from Pakistan who accompany trekkers and mountaineers on their expeditions.” In doing this, she reverses the historical perception. Lapis lazuli blue, once worth more than gold in Europe; was applied in the costumes of Jesus Christ, Virgin Mary and royalty (hence the term ‘royal blue’). Hamra Abbas has chosen the substance to immortalise the hardened faces of those existing on the margins of history and history of art. The choice of a pigment extracted from a mountain to paint their portraits is logical because they live in/ around the mountains, which provide their bread and butter.

Abbas’s handling of these paintings demonstrates perfect execution, visible in her stones that makes her ideas, questions and concerns about ecology real and tangible, touching many a sensitive heart in the process.

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