the exhibition
"Contemporary Echoes" of the latest works by
Naveed Akhtar (ASHKAL).
"I see my practice as a visual dialogue where
history, memory, and contemporary experience
interact with one another. For me, painting is
not simply about creating images it is about
re-examining existing imagery, transforming it,
and generating new meanings through it. Through
contemporary painting, I explore the emotional
and psychological layers that images accumulate
over time.
I
work across different mediums particularly
charcoal, acrylic, and mixed media on canvas
because each medium carries its own energy and
visual language. Charcoal, for me, represents
memory and shadow, while acrylic introduces
intensity, movement, and disruption. Through the
combination of these materials, I create
surfaces that feel both raw and controlled at
the same time.
My recent body of work, “Contemporary
Echoes,” is based on transforming the imagery of
Western Old Masters into a contemporary context.
Rather than directly reproducing classical
paintings, I deconstruct, distort, and
reconstruct them so they can exist within
today’s visual and cultural environment in a new
form. In my work, historical imagery appears
like memory itself sometimes clear, sometimes
fragmented, and sometimes almost erased. This
transformation is not only a stylistic process
for me, but also a conceptual investigation into
how historical images continue to survive within
our collective consciousness.
Experimentation with the physical surface of the
canvas is an essential part of my practice.
Layering, scraping, erasing, and rebuilding are
central to my process. I want each work to carry
evidence of its own making traces of time,
unfinished marks, and hidden histories. For me,
painting is never a fixed image; it is an
evolving space where destruction and creation
exist simultaneously.
My work also engages with ideas of identity,
cultural inheritance, and image consumption. In
today’s hyper-visual and digitally saturated
world, we constantly exist among reproduced
images, and I am interested in exploring how
classical visual language can still generate new
meanings within a fragmented contemporary
reality.
Ultimately, my
practice is not about preserving the past, but
about reawakening it. Through my paintings, I
aim to create a bridge between history and
contemporary reality a space where familiar
imagery can re-emerge in a new emotional and
conceptual form." - ASHKAL
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