A traveller sits by a fire and tells tales of the places he has visited; a writer puts words to his adventures and an artist draws and paints his narrative. Australian-born printmaker and an avid traveller, Damon Kowarsky has recounted his travels in Yemen, Djibouti and Ethiopia in etching prints which were recently displayed at the Alhamra Art Galleries in Lahore. Titled ‘Home and away’, his work is primarily a representation of his memories of the sizzling sun and the colours of mud and stone in these countries.

His travel experiences and his skill as a printmaker empower Kowarsky to recreate the narrow, congested streets of old Middle Eastern cities in his cityscapes, the undulations of virgin land and the use of innate building material. The metal plate may restrain the flow of the line, but eventually it results as a study of linear value, the contour that ‘seemingly’ trembles, adds to emotion and pathos in a landscape.

More so when a male figure enters the picture from the foreground to either explore the streets or to soak in the novelty of a historic city. In ‘Cities and desire 4’, the outline of the male figure is imposingly drawn upon the cityscape. The same figure continues to amble in ‘Departure’. Interestingly, this print portrays two moments frozen in time — one as the figure enters the city and the second as it turn the first corner. The dwellings in this print are flat, the intricacies of urban structure are missing and in its place are the more formal spaces of village mud houses.

In ‘Looking down’, the cityscape is a compacted visual; the linear expression is a combination of the perspective of dwellings and the grain of the paper. While in its sequel ‘Looking down II’, the lines overlap and soften the harsh, alien distinctions. ‘City IV’ has the oblong shapes ride up the tall building, as the sun burns down on the flat roofs while the shadow is a relief in more ways than one.

The print ‘Night city’ is definitely unusual, a landscape, that is a dark print on shadowy paper, except for the lights that are tiny dabs of yellow; making this as a statement of a phenomenon that occurs in desolate and far off villages and small towns. ‘Shibam’, is a series of four prints; the buildings stand huddled together, the structure is composed in a row, while the male figure strolls by.

Kowarsky studied printmaking at Melbourne’s Victorian College of Arts and Glasgow School of Art. Since graduating, he has worked as a courtroom, archaeological and scientific illustrator and has also exhibited regularly in Australia as well as internationally. He is currently artist in residence/visiting faculty member at Beaconhouse National University, Lahore and is working on documenting his experiences and observations of life in Pakistan which he hopes to exhibit in 2009.