Transience

TransienCE

This body of work was the culmination of my thesis project as part of my Bachelors in Fine Arts at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture in 2017.

The work emerged from the emotional undercurrents we carry, and the notion that memory can be both resilient and unreliable. We remember isolated details: a voice, a laugh, a smell, a certain space. The imprint in the mind is always a ghost of the moments we try to recall: sometimes overlapping or ricocheting off one another and colliding into chaos; drifting into obscurity, but always leaving traces of themselves behind.

The layers of separate mediums become metaphors for layers of memory, the physical process of creating and obscuring echoing the ways in which our own minds alter our remembered realities.

'Brother'

Water Based Transfers, Chalk, Charcoal, Water Colour Pencils on Montval Paper

Approx. 8 ft by 4 ft

2016

'Dreamscapes and Skewed Perspectives'

Water Based Transfers, Chalk, Charcoal, Acrylic Paint, Graphite on Montval Paper

Approx. 8 ft by 4 ft

2016

'The Sun On Her Face'

Water Based Transfers, Chalk, Charcoal on Montval Paper

Approx. 2.5 ft by 1.5 ft

2016

'Maa'

Water Based Transfers, Chalk, Oil Paint, Charcoal on Montval Paper

Approx. 4ft by 7ft

2016

'Karachi Nights'

Mixed Media, Water Based Transfers, Acrylic Paint, Charcoal, Graphite on Montval Paper

Approx. 5 ft by 3.5 ft

2016

DEVELOPMENTAL PIECES

The following pieces emerged from aa series of experiments with photo transfers. I discovered that non-tear prints with their water based ink were the ideal surface to get imprints from photographs.

Sequential images, some clear, some faded, some absent, gave me a way to represent the unreliability of recollections in the face of the inevitable passing of time.

'Frames'

Water Based Transfers on Canson Paper

This series grew from a series of experiments where I would take a drawing apart in layers, using tape. The tape would strip away the pigment, or rip away strips of the paper, erasing the original visual. Once put back together, only the remnants of the drawing would remain. The process was intended to serve as a metaphor for the destruction and creation of memory.

I used my city, and incorporated symbols of childhood, like the familiar hopscotch grid on pavement, as inspiration.