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Lahore Talkies

Past exhibition
8 April - 10 May 2025
  • Works

Lahore Talkies: Ahsan Javaid and Hamid Ali Hanbhi

Ahsan Javaid and Hamid Ali Hanbhi are both graduates of the National College of Arts in Lahore, drawing deeply on their immediate surroundings and social realities in their city. Borrowing from the language of cinema and finding new possibilities in visual storytelling, both artists bring Lahore to life through the intersection of various narrative techniques. Both artists work at the juncture of multiple materials and practices; drawing, painting, and textile work in conjunction to evoke the multisensory experience of film. The artists take on questions of patriarchal power and sociopolitical uncertainty, in powerful and wholly original aesthetic modes.


In Ahsan Javaid’s paintings, stories are constantly intersecting. Over beautifully rendered urban scenes and landscapes, other stories hover in the form of drawing. National tragedies–missing persons, political violence–hover over the scenes like a second skin. And yet the beauty of Lahore and its poetic spirit prevail, and Ahsan is able to provide a complex, aesthetically striking portrait of place in deep flux.


In Hamid Ali Hanbhi’s paintings, the language of cinema appears to navigate the complicated sociopolitical landscape of Pakistan. Patriarchal power, climate change, and political violence coexist with the epic landscape of his country. Deliberately evoking the format of a film still, the works are materially grounded, using textile and a deeply painterly composition to reimagine the experience of a cinematic moment.


At the forefront of the artistic community in Lahore, these artists are also close friends and collaborators, bringing a specific spirit of creativity in Pakistan to Los Angeles. Both artists speak the language of cinema, a natural spark for dialogue between South Asia and Southern California.


ARTIST STATEMENTS:

HAMID ALI HANBHI

Working with found images from movies, my work deals with the re-narration of certain visuals. Movies, which consist of running images where each single frame doesn’t remain for long in front of us, serve as a source for my image-making practice—one that revolves around freezing a moment and generating new meaning from it. The subject matter in my work ranges from political imagery to love scenes, from violent war images to poetic landscapes of a world yet to be adventured.

Beyond the stillness of the frame, my practice also engages with materiality—placing visuals on surfaces are not merely a support but active participants in generation of context. The interplay between image and material allows for a layered dialogue, where power structures, ecological tensions, and cultural memory converge.

For me, the selection of certain images and the dialogue between film stills is the most compelling aspect: it allows me to relive distant locations and histories through the very act of painting.


AHSAN JAVAID

My practice explores the intersections of identity, memory, and power, engaging with how histories are constructed, obscured, and remembered. I am particularly drawn to the gaps and silences within collective narratives, examining how power operates within visual culture and materiality, shaping what is preserved and what fades from view.

This body of work was informed by socio-political literary texts that serve as entry points for visual exploration. Rather than directly translating or illustrating the text, my process fosters a dialogue between language and image. The texts I engage with provide a loose framework, carrying layers of meaning, history, and memories. I work with found imagery from print media and digital archives, using painting, drawing, and collage as my primary layering devices. Through deconstruction and reassembly, I shape compositions where fragmented histories, collective memory, and lived experience converge into fluid, evolving forms of visual storytelling. The process of cutting, layering, and recomposing mirrors the fluidity of historical memory—how events are recalled, altered, or reframed across time and space. Figures emerge and recede, gestures interrupt and intertwine, creating compositions that resist linear narratives and invite multiple readings.


  • Hamid Ali Hanbhi, The cost you pay, 2025
    Hamid Ali Hanbhi
    The cost you pay, 2025
    Oil, Pashmina and stitching on canvas
    55 x 105 inches
  • Hamid Ali Hanbhi, Horizon’s paradox, 2025
    Hamid Ali Hanbhi
    Horizon’s paradox, 2025
    Oil on Fabric
    51x78 inches
  • Hamid Ali Hanbhi, Shikari (Hunter), 2025
    Hamid Ali Hanbhi
    Shikari (Hunter), 2025
    Oil on fabric
    36 x 48 inches
  • Hamid Ali Hanbhi, The price of May, 2025
    Hamid Ali Hanbhi
    The price of May, 2025
    Oil on fabric
    43.5 x 68 inches
  • Hamid Ali Hanbhi, Charan Seva, 2025
    Hamid Ali Hanbhi
    Charan Seva, 2025
    Painting, dupatta and stitching on canvas
    42x60 inches
  • Ahsan Javaid, The missing bloom, 2025
    Ahsan Javaid
    The missing bloom, 2025
    Oil on canvas
    60 x 60 inches
  • Ahsan Javaid, 16th august, 2025
    Ahsan Javaid
    16th august, 2025
    Acrylic on canvas
    32.5 x 38 inches
  • Ahsan Javaid, Landscape of everyday iv, 2025
    Ahsan Javaid
    Landscape of everyday iv, 2025
    Paint and used clothes in acrylic box
    32 inches in Diameter
  • Ahsan Javaid, Starry night in lahore, 2025
    Ahsan Javaid
    Starry night in lahore, 2025
    Paint and used clothes in acrylic box
    36 x 33 inches (each piece 5.5 x 36 inches)
  • Ahsan Javaid, Shab e barat (night of salvation), 2025
    Ahsan Javaid
    Shab e barat (night of salvation), 2025
    Used cloths in acrylic box
    10 x 10 inches
Ahsan Javaid, born in 1992, graduated in Fine Arts (Painting) from the National College of Arts, Lahore, in 2015. Within this very year, Ahsan’s work got selected for the ‘India Art Award 2016’ and he participated in the ‘First KBT-OPP Artists Residency’ and ‘Climate Change and Art: A Practitioner’s Retreat’ art residency in Swat. He also attended ‘Capacity Building and Knowledge Transfer on Preventive Preservation and Basic Conservation of Art in Pakistan’ in the same year. Ahsan was also awarded the Arjumand Painting Award 2021. Ahsan has been working with major art galleries in Pakistan including Canvas Gallery, Koel Gallery, Sanat Initiative, O Art Space, Numaish Gah, Gallery 6, Gandhara Art Space, and more. He has also exhibited his works internationally in USA at Rajiv Menon Contemporary, with more shows coming up in 2025. Along with his artistic practice, Ahsan is an art director and also the Co-Founder of Articulate Studios and residencies. Ahsan currently lives and works in Lahore, Pakistan.

Hamid Ali Hanbhi (born 1989, in Jacobabad) is a Pakistani contemporary artist. He is currently working as an artist and an educator in Lahore. Hanbhi studied at The National College of Arts Lahore in Pakistan. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts with a distinction. He works in various mediums including; drawing, painting, sculpture, videos and large-scale installations. He started his career by painting cinema boards, billboards and truck art at Ideal Arts in Jacobabad. Hanbhi’s body of work includes recreation of cinematic visuals. Using his power of imagination, he extracts new meanings out of existing frames to prolong brief moments in them. The visual arc of this series ranges from romantic scenes, war and political imagery to landscapes from fantasy worlds. Juxtaposition of multiple stills from multiple films is the core of Hanbhi’s work. His idea is to create a dialogue between contrasting images while reliving those distant locations and time through the very act of painting. Hanbhi is a multidisciplinary artist and his works have been featured in Imago Mundi, Venice Biennale Italy (2016), Karachi Biennale (2017), He did multiple solo Exhibitions including called Out of Sight at Canvas Gallery, Karachi (2020), Confirm Jannati at O art space Gallery, Lahore(2022) and several group exhibitions, THE PAST IS A COUNTRY at Rajiv Menon contemporary Los Angeles US,. Before the end of time at Canvas Gallery, Karachi (2022), Dar amad at O Art Gallery, Lahore (2022), Uncurated at Full circle gallery, Karachi (2022), RECLAIM at O Art Space, Lahore (2021), NIC at O Art Space, Lahore (2021), IF YOU HAVE TEARS, at Canvas gallery kachi (2021), Virtual Reality, at O Art Space, Lahore (2021).

Related artists

  • Hamid Ali Hanbhi

  • Ahsan Javaid

    Ahsan Javaid

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