KARACHI: Painters and sculptors have always been fascinated by the human form. The foremost reason for it is the `poetry in motion` that they detect in the body that is often considered in a profound clash with the soul. A five-person show titled Figuratively Speaking that opened at the Full Circle Gallery on Friday is another testimony, a pretty convincing one at that, to the observation.

Ammama Malik sets the exhibition in motion with her intriguing study of the female form. The artist in her oil-on-canvas work captures the movement of a body like a literary critic analyses the prosodic rhythm of a well-constructed poem.

And she does it with a great deal of aplomb.

Faten Suleman plays with the idea that has been exhaustively explored by 20th century writers: memory and how it manifests in our future courses of action. Unlike Malik, Faten conflates the female body with other creatures, creating contorting images that signify the protagonist in the artworks` nonlinear progress.Hassan Shah Gillani focuses on the same form but gives it an entirely different look, and feel, by using pencil on paper as his medium. The greyness of the figure in focus with her sensual moves lends it a single dimension, but that single dimension is achieved with such skill that the undulating figures appear to be carrying myriads of emotions within them.

Anas Abro makes his subject matter speak by virtue of their muscles and limbs. Doing that the artist strikes up a dialogue between the knowledge attained by the body while simultaneously acl(nowledging the mystique-laden presence of the soul.

Ayesha Naveed takes a route that`s different from her other four colleagues, and it is impossible not to notice both the strength of her lines, the force of her colours and the power of her content.

By showing gestures of half the bodies of her characters, she lures the viewer into entering the world of tremendous possibilities where people`s intentions and their gestures become delightfully vague.

The show will conclude on Aug 25.