K ARACHI: There are four sides to a square. But an exhibition under way at the Canvas Art Gallery is titled Five Sides of a Square. Why? Perhaps because there are five artists taking part in the show; or, perhaps because the artists don`t see that particular geometrical shape in a conventional way. Artists and convention never get along.

The painters (ah, that beautiful word, painter) Zahrah Ehsan, Amna Suheyl, Sana Saeed, Ghazi Sil(andar Mirza and Kiran Waseem have put up some of the most striking artworl(s I have seen in recent times. Before expanding on that, let`s do one thing: replace the word square with existence. It is not easy though: existence can be manysided or, in some cases, amorphous. This can also be the context which resulted in the name of the show the amorphous nature of man`s existence. Yes, not everyonegets what they want, and sometimes abundance of things tangible or intangible contribute to the amorphousness of being.

This is evident in the works of all the five artists, nay painters. It begins on a personal note in the form of emotion expressed through graffiti, with a generoussplash of colour and writings that come across as doodles an individual`s unclear emotional graph.

The theme moves forward with a slight allusion to Sylvia Plath`s famous line, `Dying is an art.` The two objects focused by one of the artists in an oil-on-canvas piece depict life in inertia. It is a knownfactthatinertiacanbeinterpreted as death.

From the personal to the impersonal: now the viewer sees images in grey. They are the common folk, call them the masses if you so wish. For a group of people, as opposed to an individual, life is always on the move. But the man-ner in which it moves is what the artist questions.

There are a couple of more questions raised in the show; one relates to a requiem and the other challenges the viewer`s olfactory sense by virtue of a visual journey.

The exhibition, curated by Quddus Mirza, concludes on Dec 7.