AUTHOR: BATUL TUNIO
PUBLICATIONS: NEWSLINE – ART LINE (P.96)
DATED: OCT 2011

Intense Quest, a show featuring the work of three artists from Lahores National College of Arts – Wajid Ali, Saadia Hussain, and Naqsh Raj – at the VM Art Gallery last month, depicts their journey to discover their oeuvre and define it within the perimeters of theoretical and contemporary art.

Naqsh Rajs experimentation with mixed media portrays his struggle to arrive at a destination – his canvases display a raw, modern sensibility. His search for an identity leads him to explore ideas in other peoples artwork, but he arrives at the realisation that copying the masters is a form of servitude that could make his own canvases uninspiring. Rajs large canvases represent his loud rebellion against the norm and his confidence in his own art. An example is a painting depicting a plastic bag filled with scraps of other peoples artwork and an abandoned canvas, ready to be disposed of. Regardless of the artists rejection of theory, he finds himself bound to it by his profession, which he represents in another canvas portraying a rope tied around a plastic bag attached to the artists seat.