RAINBOW OF SIN

This project was a group collaboration between seven printmakers, all graduates from the Rhode Island School of Design. The project involved each artist being alloted one of the seven cardinal sins as his/her topic for the work along with being assigned one color from the seven that make up the spectrum of the rainbow. The artists had to match their assigned "sin" to their assigned "color" and produce one piece in a printmaking technique from a total of seven for the project. Multiple editions of the project were published in 2007 in conjunction with the "Rainbow of Sin" exhibition at 55 Mercer Gallery in New York and is now a part of both private and public collections in the US. Below is the project in it's entirety: 

PRINTODAY; 09

PrinToday was a project also unique to printmaking and was the first initiation of its kind in Pakistan. "PrinToday; 09" showcased works of ten Pakistani artists from different areas of Pakistan, not necessarily printmakers but artists, coming together and producing art works that would qualify as works of printmaking. They were invited to work on one given 'word' which would flexibly function to work as the theme of the project. The word chosen was "Today". It was indicated that each artist would work in accordance to their individual perceptions of this word. Every artist, as per requirement of the project, was to produce three works each, working within the conventional techniques of printmaking. The project was put together in the form of a group show and was exhibited in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi. The following was my contribution to the project:

POSTCARDS IN THE TIME OF WAR

This project was conceived and executed by six artists who are also art educators in Pakistan. The postcards were created as a response to the fear and insecurity felt by the six in their surrounding environment. Though all six participants are from different areas of Pakistan and are of different ethnicities, they all teach at the National College of arts, Rawalpindi and have thus developed a very special relationship with each other over the years. These postcards, therefore, also contain secret messages in their visuals based on the friendships the artists have for each other along with a debate on the recent terror activities that have started to shape the lives of all Pakistanis. Each artist made one postcard each for every other participating artist. He/she in turn received five postcards from the other participants (one from each of them). Keeping the individual postcards in mind, each artist then had to respond to each other artist creating a visual dialog, or, letters in imagery.  The project was exhibited at The Twelve Gates Gallery in Philadelphia, USA. 

The following are my postcards for the project. For more information, please visit  www.twelvegatesgallery.com