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Munnawar Ali Syed, who received his initial art training from the National College of Arts, Lahore, is an extremely versatile artist, equally at home in a diverse range of media. An active member of VASL, the Pakistan chapter of the Triangle Art Trust Network, Syed has attended several artists’ workshops abroad including the Burragorang Workshop Australia, and International Workshops held in the UK. Attending workshops and organizing them in Pakistan, the artist works freely with graphite, paint, clay or wood. His expression moves from wall-based artworks to installation and performance art.
For the National Art Gallery opening in Islamabad recently, Syed created water-based work, floating heads with shapes of paper boats worked in fired clay with glaze and aluminum sheets.
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The artist’s latest work amalgamates wood block carving, metal and clay in a collection titled: ‘Overloaded’. It consists of large carved wood-block torsos, topped by copper heads, finely defined features and heavy-lidded eyes. In some instances the base of the torso narrows into a three pronged shape resembling a bomb or rocket part. Syed described his work as a socio-political response to the media, which he views as changing public vision. In a recent exhibition of the artist’s work in Karachi, the three dimensional work was supported by a collection of skillfully executed pen-and-ink drawings where the dynamic cross-hatched technique created an intense shield between the observer and the subject.
Durriya Kazi, who heads the department of Visual Studies at the Karachi University where Munnawar Ali Syed is a teacher, commented on the recent work, “Munnawar has, in this exhibition, found his true voice. His work has always been a sensitive response to the political injustice. This work has a maturity of imagery and metaphor, and reflects a growing trend of bold statements by artists against the self-destructive nature of protest that this nation had chosen to adopt”.
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