Entitled ‘Passionate Hues’, an exhibition of paintings is going to open today (Saturday) at Gallery6, bringing together three women painters of Islamabad, whose subjects are distinctly different with Nargis Khalid focusing on still life, Nusrat Ji’s landscapes and Shaheen Shahzada’s figurative expressions. But their commonality is the use of intense colours with an ardent enthusiasm.
Dominating interplay of colours—red, yellow, blue, orange, green and purple—creates the compositions with markedly different treatment and surfaces.
Nargis Khalid graduated from Central Institute of Arts and Crafts Karachi in 1973 and got the opportunity to learn from legendary teachers like Ali Imam and Rashid Ahmed Arshed. She also painted with Ahmed Parvez for almost a year, which added a new dimension to her work. Nargis then proceeded to USA for Masters in Art Education from Rhode Island School of Design, where she saw and observed artworks of several leading painters and came across art critics that guided her in greater understanding of art. Nargis has participated in 36 group exhibitions and held 10 solo shows in Pakistan, USA, UAE and Azerbaijan. She has also been commissioned to make paintings for specific places, including 18 large paintings that hang in Emirate Towers in Dubai. She has taught art in universities in USA and UAE, and currently is a professor at the Department of Architecture and Design, COMSATS, Islamabad.
Describing her love for painting, Nargis Khalid said “My last brush stroke will coincide with my last breath”.
Nusrat Ji obtained her BFA degree from Punjab University in 1970, completed a diploma from Pakistan Art Institute, Karachi in 1989 and acquired a certificate in History of Contemporary Art, from McGill University, Canada in 2003. She has to her credit 28 group shows and 18 solo exhibitions, held nationally and internationally. Besides these, she also has diploma in interior decoration and certification in flower arrangements.
Though actively engaged in interior designing of scores of public and private places and landscaping in different places, she has actively remained engaged with paintings over three decades and has also worked as art teacher in UAE, USA, Canada, UK and Pakistan. She has produced paintings in oil, acrylic, water colour, pencil, charcoal, wax and mixed media. The subjects of her paintings have been men, women, horses, flowers, seascapes and calligraphy. In this exhibition, she has focussed on landscapes with some brush and palette knife strokes clearly defining the object, while others merging. This creates imagery with three dimensional effects with an element of surrealism. Commenting on her art journey Nusrat Ji said: “Over the years, my paintings have had multi discipline concepts, which are wrapped up in strong cultural ethos, mingled up with human emotions and activities”.
Shaheen Shahzada’s inspiration for painting came from her mother, Laila Shehzada. She graduated in 1970 with a degree in Graphic Arts and was amongst the first batch of students graduating under Ali Imam’s guidance at the Central Institute of Arts and Crafts, Arts Council Karachi. She then moved to USA and participated in group shows in USA between 1971 – 1979.
In 1980, Shaheen moved to London and became a full time interior decorator, but continued to paint intermittently. She returned to Islamabad about five years back and has been concentrating more on painting. She is announcing her return to paintings full time by participating in this exhibition – her first ever in Pakistan.
Her medium is acrylics on canvas and her subject is the human moods interpreted with minimal lines and bold flat colours. It depicts yin and yang of life describing how polar opposites or seemingly contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, and how they give rise to each other in turn. Opposites thus only exist in relation to each other. Discussing her work, Shaheen said, “None of us feel the same way while passing through the same time or event – someone may feel elated or while other may feel upside down, the two distinctly different reactions by two persons at a given moment”. The exhibition will continue till 9 December, daily from 11 am to 7 pm, including Sundays at House 624, Street 44, Sector-G-9/1.
