A recent solo show titled ‘Alone by Nahid Raza’, opened at the Art Chowk gallery, is a continued tale of womanhood that she beautifully shared with her viewers....
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Nahid Raza is one of the prominent and widely acclaimed artists who have set an example in the art community as a strong woman and artist. She eloquently and boldly speaks about women rights and women issues in her symbolic paintings. A recent solo show titled ‘Alone by Nahid Raza’, opened at the Art Chowk gallery, is a continued tale of womanhood that she beautifully shared with her viewers.
The show was a culmination of striking painting series presented by the artist in different vibrant hues by which Raza celebrated the existence and different traits of woman. In each image, she created a mood with flamboyant colours; whereas, there are layers of stories attached to each woman speaking about resilience, courage, sobbing and inspiration.
If one has followed the timeline of the artist’s works so one would understand the notion that her work whirled around her personal experiences. Mother is her favourite subject to paint which further strengthens with her personal experiences.
Each topic holds a special significance in the visuals she creates. The women series seems very personal and intuitive. She has explicated through her work the feeling of ‘other’ in a patriarchal society.
She remodelled many characteristics of women that one cannot count. Near to the artist, motherhood is the phase of a woman’s life in which she feels complete and flourished as a healthy lush tree that stands tall in all-weather just to provide shadow and ease to others.
The paintings embellished on the walls were extremely alluring to the eyes. The colour palette stayed loud in all the images, each female wearing ghagra and choli in such pleasant colours stands out from the other that one could not stop gazing at the canvases. Raza deliberately denounced to add dull or boring hues but played around loud and vibrant colours like pink, orange, yellow, black, blue and red to create different moods of the characters and add life to the canvas. She sent a message across that an artist can weave a narrative without adding monotonous or dull elements and can still speak his/her mind by having a command on the colours and bringing out the image as par excellence.
The artist divided her work into two categories; the right wall displayed an array of pleasant images with simple background and the left wall was decorated with a series of paintings revolving around woman with different grid backgrounds. The images with backgrounds had tiny images placed in each grid box in which there were faces, objects and symbols whereas the women above the background sits calmly and expressionless in a posture, in some legs crossed and, in some legs sideways, holding flowers or sit in between scattered petals. The artist brilliantly narrated her feelings at the same time chaos around a woman depicted with the minute symbols in the background. These females’ existence demanded far more severe justifications.
The presence of a single flower with these females represents love, reproduction or decay, purity or promiscuity, hardship. It also represents the delicacy and fragility of a woman. Raza advocates through her oeuvre the positive image of woman and that she is like a flower that has many beautiful and pleasant petals layering the inner bud. Each petal explicates the exquisiteness, strength and magnificence of a woman.
The painting titled ‘Woman in black with a bird’ is a female sitting with her legs crossed and a pigeon on her hand which depicts the free spirit of a woman and her friendly nature. The figure and the pigeon come out striking as the background and the costume is black. Raza splashes a different mood of a woman in her another image titled ‘Woman in black II’ where a female looks extremely drained and tired as if the life has been harsh on her but the presence of a flower in her hand depicts the presence of hope and life in her, thus a grain of anticipation flickering in the image.
The presence of the flowers and birds portray hope, tranquillity and harmony. These images resonate power and strength of the artist. Each painting is a phase of Raza’s life which she filled with colours, symbols and objects to narrate the story in a simpler, direct and enhanced way.
She also infused two tales together by showcasing two women on one canvas. Wearing ghagra and choli in pleasant colour, these two women seemed showing sympathy towards each other. Raza further carried on the theme thus painted two women with a grid background and two women with a plain background but the use of vivid colours creates vibrancy in these images. It is said that a woman’s misery can only be understood by another woman so the artist had painted the concept and shared that how a female can give warmth and ease to another woman’s grief and pain.
It is hard to discuss each painting in the review but Raza’s work surely triggers a viewer’s imagination to various interpretations. These images set a powerful statement that a woman might look different from another woman but the stories are the same.
