melbourne written objective project

A review of Damon Kowarsky’s exhibition Perdesi, recently shown in Lahore throughout February, as published in IMPRINT magazine – Autumn 2010, Volume 45, Number 1.

For more information on IMPRINT magazine, visit www.printcouncil.org.au.

PERDESI

In his 2007 essay “Of loss and the other Damon” the Pakistani art critic and historian Quddus Mirza asked “in what way the city of Lahore will emerge in [Kowarsky's] work in future”[1]. It was a relevant question. Kowarsky had recently completed an artist in residence/visiting faculty program at Beaconhouse National University Lahore and held a successful solo exhibition at Alhamra Art Gallery. Though this exhibition was inspired by previous travels in the Middle East, Mexico and Australia there was much that related to Lahore, from “Mexican buildings [that] suggest looking forward into Lahore’s future”[2] to specific memories of “sleeping outdoors on the roof on hot summer nights, wishing upon shooting stars and storytelling”[3].

So Mirza’s question was both an invitation and a challenge: how to represent Pakistan and the city of Lahore in a way that was both familiar to those who live there and informed by the experience of being a visitor to that ancient land.

This February saw Kowarsky return to Lahore with his exhibition Perdesi. The title comes from the Urdu word for foreigner and was the counterpart to Desi [local] at the Joshua McClelland Print Room in October 2009. There was a neat interplay between being local in hometown Melbourne with foreign artwork, and foreign in Lahore with artwork inspired entirely by the region.

In both exhibitions Kowarsky took his familiar themes of man and the city and adapted them to the cultural and architectural heritage of Pakistan and India. In the etching ‘Nila Gombit’ a transparent figure is silhouetted against the skyline of downtown Lahore; in ‘Rawalpindi I’ the viewer looks over the shoulder of a more substantial figure to the city beyond.

The figures are large and appear powerful, as if mythical creatures from a bygone era. They hold clubs, sticks and other historical artefacts. They seem to have no distinct creed or colour, and are often represented as transparent within the landscape. While Kowarsky insists “the use of transparency [is] a formal response to … balance increasingly complicated cityscapes with a figurative content”[4]  there is also the sense that he employs it as a tool to address the strong connections found between people and place, and more specifically how each informs the other.

Mirza notes “in an interesting paradox, this outsider – the primordial figure who is away from the houses – is the real city”.[5]  This situation is seen as analogous to the Borges’ story ‘The Approach to Al-Mu’tasim’ [itself the title of a 2004 etching by Kowarsky]. Here “a man is split into different identities – becoming himself the subject of his writing”.[6]  There is symmetry between the interplay of subject and object in the story and that of the insider/outsider paradox of Kowarsky’s work.

How appropriate then that ‘The Approach to Al-Mu’tasim’ should be a gloss of the Mantiq at-Tayr [The Conference of the Birds], a 12^th Century Persian text well known in Pakistan as an allegory of Sufi mysticism.

Kowarsky works with a confidence of hand that is revealed through his ability to work across multiple media within a single aesthetic framework. This includes paintings based on the miniature technique he studied in Pakistan under Murad Mumtaz and Mahreen Zuberi. It is a tradition steeped in history and requires exacting teaching methods. Unlike Australian universities that often push their focus towards conceptual rather than practical teachings, miniature painting is taught with a clear understanding of a body of knowledge and skill. While the results of this method are not always perfect – cold-hearted technique is its own vice – you equally can’t hide poor production behind a good concept.

In this exhibition Kowarsky accepts Mirza’s challenge by presenting the cities of Pakistan and India through his familiar colours – the earthy red glow of ancient buildings and the deep black of midnight skies. He does so with such conviction that we believe Kowarsky was indeed sleeping outdoors on hot summer nights, wishing upon shooting stars and storytelling – more desi than perdesi.

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[1] Mirza, Q. “Of loss and the other Damon”. The News International Lahore. December 2007
[2] Salima Hashmi quoted in Usman, A. “Culture on Canvas”. Daily Times Lahore. November 27, 2007
[3] Sohail, T. “Cities of Angels”. The Friday Times. January 11-17, 2008
[4] Interview with the artist, quoted in Melbourne Written Objective Project December 2009 www.woproject.wordpress.com
[5] Mirza, Q. ibid
[6] Mirza, Q. ibid