Leading Pakistani artist, art educationist and activist Lala Rukh’s first solo show in Dubai, Sagar, presents a collection of enigmatic photographs of the sea and other water bodies. The artworks contemplate the nature of time and transience.
The photographs were shot during her travels to Sri Lanka, India, Nepal and Myanmar between 1992 and 2005, but have never been exhibited before. They include pictures of tranquil Lake Inle, beautiful beaches in Goa and Trincomalee, the raging river Irrawady and Pegasus Reef. The sets of intimate, small -scale images capture fleeting, magical moments of light and shade, the movement of the water, the glow of the horizon and the flow of time itself.
Also on display is a graphite drawing on paper and a mixed media drawing on photographic paper from the artist’s well-known River in an Ocean series from 1992. In these works, the artist has drawn the ocean and the horizon from memory. Like the photographs, the drawings also present a poetic portrayal of the ebb and flow of life, and invite viewers to contemplate the philosophical question of being and nothingness.
“I live in a landlocked city, and hence love to travel to places near the ocean or other water bodies, where I can enjoy looking at the horizon and the sunrise and sunset, and feel the expanse and power of the ocean and the many layers under the surface of the water,” the artist says.
A central piece in the show is a video that Lala Rukh shot near the ship breaking yard in Gadani, Pakistan, during a residency in 2001. In this video, she has filmed the sea from dawn to dusk on an 8mm tape, capturing the waves as they rushed to the shore, the foam trails they left behind on the sand, the changing light and the changing tides to create an enchanting narrative about the beauty of nature and of time and infinity.
Sagar will run at Grey Noise Gallery, Alserkal Avenue until May 13.
