Installation View 3, Dialogues Across Time, Chawkandi Gallery, 2025.

Seeing the Grid: Imran Mir and Ayessha Quraishi in Dialogue

Imran Mir’s Untitled (Fourth Paper on Modern Art) (1978), shown alongside Quraishi’s What is, is as it is (2024), presents two distinct generational approaches to abstraction and the grid, each shaped by a different relationship to form, light, and time.

Mir’s use of the grid—precise, luminous, and quietly intense—anchors his practice in a conceptual inquiry into structure, logic, and perception. Each square, with its tonal depth and measured repetition, is held in place by a visible metal framework. Within this consistent modular system, the grid becomes a field of control and clarity, aligned with a modernist pursuit of purity and order.

In contrast, Quraishi engages the grid as a site of possibility, fluid rather than fixed. Ink moves in oblique diagonals, disrupting symmetry and inviting ambiguity. The grid becomes an evolving process, shaped by presence and inner rhythm. While Mir’s grid stabilizes, hers dissolves. His holds; hers lets go. His speaks of foundations; hers, of transformation.

Together, the works explore structure as both anchor and opening.

Curated by Saira Danish Ahmed, the exhibition underscored how artistic legacies remain active forces, informing new practices and sustaining dialogue across generations.