Depicting life!

paintings

Recently, Sabiha Nasr-ud-Deen showcased her solo exhibition at Grandeur Art gallery in Karachi. You! takes a look...

Art exhibitions are all about giving viewers some visual treat - be it in the shape of classic paintings or sketches. Recently, art lovers got a chance to cherish Sabiha Nasr-ud-Deen’s exquisite art work, held recently at Grandeur art gallery in Karachi. The talented artist has been painting professionally since she graduated from Punjab University in 1968 as a gold medalist. She later worked at the Royal School of Art (UK) and taught at the Arts Council Karachi. She has participated in group shows in Pakistan and abroad and this is her second solo show in Karachi.

Her work presented at the exhibition was simple yet beautiful and focused on elements from our everyday life. Sabiha’s work stands out because it is a reflection of everything that is Pakistan. Her work is expressionistic in essence and she has focused on capturing the vitality and diversity of the people, landscape and flora around her. The mediums used for the artwork included ink and wash as well as oils and watercolours.

The 55 works presented at the gallery included landscapes, faces of Pakistan, and rural women in their everyday settings. For those who don’t know, landscape art is the depiction of landscapes including natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view - with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. Landscape backgrounds for figures also included in landscape art.

In the landscapes section of Sabiha’s work, there was a collage of paintings that depicted how beautiful nature is. Landscape art is supposed to have physical rudiments of landforms such as mountains, hills, rivers, lakes, ponds and the sea, as well as fields and vegetation, human elements. The work created by Sabiha for her solo exhibition this time round had all of these elements and more! Each painting or sketch managed to portray a different kind of weather condition due to the shading techniques she has applied to each piece.

There were flowers, fields and different natural settings that she created to focus on how important the natural environment around us is. After all, living in cosmopolitan cities like Karachi and Lahore definitely make one crave for nature. The colours in her landscapes were also meticulously balanced; no excess of greenery or other colours but just a pure depiction of the way nature meant it to be.

The daily life scenarios on the other hand included women working in the field. Her ink-and-marker work included rural women performing chores like winnowing the wheat etc. It was however, the attention to detail in each art work that was so enthralling for the audience.

There were also portraits of farmers in their traditional attire in which the face and expressions were predominant. The intent to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person, was accomplished in the artwork so much that one could relate to the farmer.

Overall the exhibition was a breath of fresh air for all art lovers who are always in the search for innovative work. We are looking forward to more of such exhibitions by Sabiha in the near future.