FROM BEENA SARWAR

Colin David: Unwilling symbol of an ongoing clash

By Beena Sarwar

I remember Colin David as an unassuming and quiet artist who only wanted to live life on his own terms, and paint who and what he wanted to. The hooligans who burst into his house on May 22, 1990 to destroy his paintings opposed this right. The incident symbolized the ongoing clash between those who believe in freedom of expression, and those who take it upon themselves to police it. The attack on David's house and work was not the first of its kind, but it was the most violent and invasive until then – and perhaps since – in Pakistan.

The Zia years had pushed figurative arts and classical dance (never particularly populist forms to begin with) out of the public realm where they had started to emerge. In one incident, vandals attacked Sadequain's figurative paintings stored in the Freemason building at Regal Chowk, Lahore, completely destroying at least one painting. The gentle `malang' was later among those who took the appeasement route, turning to calligraphy. Many others restricted figurative works to sherwani-clad portraits of political personages at official exhibitions.

Colin David, a professor at the National College of Arts, continued to paint the human body in his own style of realism, but such works disappeared from the few art galleries that then existed. Some artists defiantly incorporated subversive images into abstract or allegorical works. Colin's friend and contemporary A. R. Nagori metaphorically used animals to convey his message, for example, wolves in uniform. Salima Hashmi integrated nude torsos into landscapes.

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