Quddus Mirza's latest solo exhibition at Canvas Gallery in Karachi presents a series of abstract oil paintings that explore violence as a fundamental condition of existence. The show, titled "Art Of War (And Paint)," features large-scale works built through exhaustive layering, with deep crimsons, burnt yellows, and cooling greens. Mirza offers only a single phrase as an artist's statement—"A perception in paint, in and of the world around us"—refusing viewers a conventional interpretive framework. Each painting begins with worldly stimuli from his Lahore studio, such as passing planes or news imagery, and evolves through a process where thought and action are deliberately separated.
This exhibition matters because it positions violence not as an isolated event but as an ongoing, constitutive force in both intimate and geopolitical realms. Mirza, a prolific writer and esteemed artist, challenges viewers to engage directly with the emotional specificity of abstraction, using his command of restraint and layered gesture to mirror the complexities of power and creation. The show contributes to broader conversations about how art can address contemporary trauma and the ethics of representation, while also asserting the importance of process over finished product in painterly practice.