The use of text in paintings has been incorporated in the arts since the early days of visual expression. Normally, the image was there to serve or elaborate the meanings of a particular script, whether that text was part of a story, a gospel or a poem. The same practice has been in fashion in the miniature tradition of Persia and that of the Mughals — encompassing various popular literary, mythological and religious concepts and views.

The exhibition ‘Brown Sahib’ at the Tanzara Gallery in Islamabad, by Shoaib Mahmood, rejuvenates the assimilation of visual imagery of traditional miniature motifs with deconstructed text, blended to carry the visual, as well as conceptual entanglement, of the pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial dogmas in South Asia.

Through this intentional practice, Mahmood questions postcolonial South Asian identity by presenting the silhouette of a Mughal emperor, curled around with creeping Urdu, Persian and Arabic text extracted from the anthropological depths of this very land.

The epithet ‘Brown Sahib’ is not new at all. It serves as satirical, social commentary on the people who geographically and culturally were Indians but were........

© Dawn (Magazines)