There is an ad running on BBC: A washing line, with five white and two bright Havana shirts; shoes placed in a sequence, the first five pairs are the black formal ones, and the last two are colourful sneakers. Away from one’s routine, physical and mental, one explores other aspects of life, feelings, emotions, and fears. It is like entering a new cubicle of one’s soul and discovering what lies there – joy, disappointment, fantasies, companionship, connection to Nature – more importantly the exposure to one’s self.

In Amna Rahman’s recent paintings from her solo exhibition, Alternate Selves (‘O’ Art Space, Lahore, March 11-21), one recognises the various dimensions of individuals. Alter, parallel, substitute and secret selves are portrayed with remarkable observation and imagination. Human figures, young and adolescent in surroundings that appear usual and familiar. Exciting yet disturbing scenarios rendered by Rahman reveal a world which exists outside as well as inside.

On one level, her canvases can be divided into two groups. Based on the reality of the everyday, and those with imaginary substance. However, on spending time with these paintings, one starts to speculate on this separation. Because what looks normal does not appear natural, and what seems strange, is possible. The duality further diffuses, as two girls enjoying their drinks in a boat with a ship at the back (Transcending the Boundary of Time) can be a composite of actuality and fantasy. The artist may have used a snapshot for reference, but her way of painting and constructing pictorial information leads to read illusion within illusion. Two girls photographed (a tangible illusion); and ocean liner, an idea, a memory.

The hallmark of Amna Rahman’s canvases is this ambiguity. This engages and entangles a viewer, but does not necessarily force them to find the truth of this magic. Margaret Atwood compares magic with producing art, “people go to magic shows to be dazzled and amazed – just as they read novels to enter into another world, and to be convinced that everything in that novel is real, at least within the covers of the book”. Looking at Amna Rahman’s visuals one is compelled to believe in whatever is presented, for example a monochromatic vision spread on the wall behind a girl occupying a cane chair (Narrative of the Mind). Or the blue haze of two figures next to a pair of vultures – appearing like a nightmare haunting two (similar?) women in the intimacy of their living space. Stream of Consciousness becomes an assemblage of characters and their demons, dreams, thoughts.

Looking at Amna Rahman’s visuals one is compelled to believe in whatever is presented, for example a monochromatic vision spread on the wall behind a girl occupying a cane chair (Narrative of the Mind).

One easily – though not very comfortably – identifies with this situation, because according to ancient myths, the soul leaves the body and travels across unknown lands during sleep, and on waking up, one gathers a residue of that uncanny and impossible sojourn. In order to decipher Amna Rahman’s imagery, one needs to recall that tiny segment of time, that boundary between sleep and getting up. An experience that stays in our memory, but like dew on grass, this recollection starts fading soon as the day progresses.

As dreams are ‘real’, though their composition and combination do not match our everyday structure, the imagery in Amna Rahman’s paintings is also concrete. Because, like dreams (the unusual mixtures of our observations – from a certain day or our entire life) embody a believable version of existence; the settings of her human figures and other elements – regardless how phantasmagorical, become plausible due to the artist’s command of transcribing sensitive details and creating arresting atmosphere. Interestingly, Rahman does not follow a strict code of photographic reproduction (painting imitating camera) but her depiction of models, various backdrops, presence of light and shadows affirm her idea that “painting humans is about meeting the subjects in this physical world as well as many other magical realms, in a very intense way”. The artist adds “when I am painting, I am emotionally invested, from which I cannot escape”.

Neither can we, as spectators from these powerful pictures: A group frolicking on the sand (An Idyllic Stimulation); two girls interacting near the shore (An Emotional Frenzy); a single woman or an accompanied one in the glare of Karachi beach (The Sun Plays Over Us, I & II). These are chronicles of people who leave the rut of everyday to find their life, their comfort, their pleasure. The bright sun, leisurely environment and refreshments are visible, but there is a subtle cartography “of the paradox of the inside and the outside of a human figure, which we will never fully comprehend”.

Amna Rahman has drawn on life – enjoying an excursion, and life at dawn, dusk or night highlighting the internal and external elements of experience. Actually, one can say that the segregation of day and night, external and internal, ceases to exist in her art, like other demarcations. We survive in a whirlpool of multiple realities: physical, private, secret, shared – when we are alone, with others or in public. Two women joined on a bench (An Escape of the Time Being), or one of them gazing at spectators (Internal Monologue), or young people enjoying the sun (The Sun Plays Over Us I) suggest a range of regular activities, but these appear to be psychological snapshots of characters, who form our familiar world, yet have deep, dark and hidden cellars of personalities.

The undercoat of psyche is delineated through a set of symbols in two paintings both titled Dreamscape (I & II). There is a jellyfish in the centre of one canvas; and two vultures bathed in a blue light in another painting. Also, a young woman sitting with an owl at her back (Nocturnal Melancholy). All these are so convincingly constructed that one tends to believe in the existence of these extraordinary situations/ entities, much like reading a book by, say, Garcia Marquez, Alejo Carpentier, Julio Cortazar or Carlos Fuentes - writers who made the magical world of Latin America real with their unmatched craft.

Amna Rahman, through her incredible skill (which must not be confused with habit or formula), projects a side of our lives, which includes our conscious, subconscious and unconscious selves. It deals with pleasure and pain – one enveloped and embedded into the other. Her protagonists – still at the beach, or relaxing in the house – represent the way we move between the world of the external and internal, between body and mind. Her paintings facilitate us in combining the hemispheres of imagination and desire with the realm of unavoidable facts to find our alternate selves.

The author is an art critic based in Lahore.