Sumera Jawad: The Excavated Linearity

Sumera Jawad is a painter with 'Excavated Line', and textures scraped out of civilizations bygone. She, through her brush, tries to explore the true image of contemporary woman by exhuming the historical representation of South Asian woman, lying underneath the crust along the great Indus River, since centuries. In her unveiling pursuit, she unfolds the layers of legends, myths and traditions which, emphasized the corporeal female image as well as her emotional supremacy but, at the same time, tried to bury her deep where no ray of light could pierce through.

Through her journey, mythological female characters are like 'milestones' that have marked her existence to reveal the persona of such characters; the goddesses that ultimately encompassed the show as its title at Nairang Galleries.

As the name 'goddesses' suggests, the show was an effort to exhibit the image of powerful women, ever existed in history, philosophy or psychology. Sumera has addressed the modern reflection of a female or up to some level, has challenged it as well, by putting the modern contemporary female image in juxtaposition with the same image of the days long-gone.

The frames in this exhibition delimited the civilizations of Rome and Egypt, owing to the enriched mythological dynamism and philosophy which had been satisfying the unasked imaginative expectancy that was likely to be evolved in and by generations to come, but the emphasis was mainly on South Asian myths, legends and literary concepts, might be due to her own geographical linkage to the terrain where goddesses used to be the symbolic expression of love, divinity and power.

Sumera has tried to contour her imagination by unearthing the Indus Valley Civilization, she has curved the female figures with the divine rhymes of Vedas, and she has tried to listened to the unspoken words; between the lines of Mahabharta which Seeta might have said after Agni Pariksha (Fire Scrutiny), or a Vishkannya's (venomous girl) tongue uttered behind her venomous teeth to express her own feelings rather then her assassinating services in royal palaces. Her brush has followed the regal beat of courts and modern choreography and put them in comparison to the movements of 'the dancing girl' of Mohenjo Daro.

This was an enormous effort as the artist tried to demonstrate with limited variety of shades and economy of detailed shapes in 'various mediums', what the artist herself had named the technique that she used in rendering most of her frames, where in doing so, undoubtedly she could not be called as unsuccessful but few of her paintings were below the standards she set for herself through some of her own masterpieces.

One of such painting was 'Focus in Varying Eyes' with iconography of the most popular goddesses of the Subcontinent, the voluptuous Yakshi and Gori were painted by the artist in poses, as they were sculpted in different temples of Maharashtra. But since the artist copied the form, already chiseled by the ancient artists, this paining got thrice removed from reality! This panel, being in horizontal arrangement, only exposed the faces and torso of the goddesses, accentuating the all time famous quality of 'fertility' associated to the subcontinent women, while the lyricism of the whole body, a goddess was made up of and for, seemed absent contrary to the subject matter of such celestial nature.

Sumera has selected a very interesting technique for her entire work which was exhibited with 'printing ink' and 'roll on' in a way that print-like quality appears to creep underneath the surfaces. Where this particular technique has placed the artist in an individual way, the drawbacks also peep through some of her works when few frames like 'Untitled-II' lacked the sensation and zing conversely to other paintings where the chiaroscuro put life and enthusiasm in the abrasion, created through the solid and loud linearity. The artist, in some places looked like losing control over her expertise of scheming light and shade divergently to her entire work as that very aspect added solidity and grandeur to the metallic bronze and browns.

A painting under the title of 'Desires' deliberately was displaying the hidden aspect of life in a very hidden way so; the suggestiveness in color, form and posture of the figure became more vibrant than it could have been perceived by a female painter. Given that the artist was looking to reintegrate the real image of South Asian women, she could not manage to stand on a larger than life pedestal for this cause and seemed inclined towards 'feminism' although she denied it in general in these words,

"I am not a feminist by intention, but if there emerge subjects and themes of such nature, it is because of my gender."

The frame 'Contemporary Goddesses' was one such example where the closed and tight composition with four sitting figures, not allowing the viewer's eye to look around or behind them but to revolve around the feline qualities of women under the puppet-like faces.

Biblical topics have always been of pivotal importance especially when one tries to link the human existence in terms of corporeal and spiritual qualities, so did the painter here by exhibiting 'First Obedience'; a painting tracing back to the concept of Original Sin, but the perception of the artist inserted unanimity of genders when she parted the single figure into masculine and feminine physiques accordingly in a texture alike that of wood; another example of skill and thought combined with subtlety, which definitely deserved, hats off!

The artist also used birth-giving quality of the women to mark her distinction as godly as of goddesses. In a frame 'the Wombed' she encaged the apes-like faces in a shape similar to a womb, clearly indicating the power and sublimity of 'mother' who by giving birth freed the humanity from the darkness of non-existentiality.

As far as the use of colors is concerned, Sumera has used earthen shades to make a statement by excavating the buried images. On the other hand, while dealing with the Indian Myths, reds come to refer the feminine grace and malleability, blues to pass on the masculinity derived from the vast of sky and yarns of Krishna, and greens to represent life and breath, consequently completing the RGB; the light theory as light is considered the foremost to reach in the depths excavated!