In ancient times, the need for decorative arts in royal palaces and holy buildings led to a variety of manufacturing techniques. One such technique that became popular was the mosaic, which was created by assembling small pieces of stone or glass to create pictures. The earliest mosaics, used in the temples of Mesopotamia, were made from coloured natural materials, and date back to the third millennium BC.

Besotted by the textural richness of mosaic, Mehr Jabin Iftikhar, a Nigeria-based Pakistani painter, has resorted to transforming this ancient art into acrylic paintings with a distinctive style. Consequently, she has held an exhibition titled ‘A Rich Life’, comprising 27 paintings, at the Grandeur Art Gallery, Karachi, under the curatorship of Neshmia. The most striking feature of the exhibition is the passionate reconstruction of the native life of Africa in a technique that complements the subject.

The painting ‘Patterns of friendship’ is one of her most interesting works, because it represents the entire spectrum of her painterly acumen. Being a pupil and keen disciple of the celebrated painter and educationist Anna Molka Ahmed, she believes in painting wild textures and bold harmonies and takes pleasure in producing creative variations.

The artist states, “My obsession with brush strokes has evolved into the mosaic method of painting. It can also be described as a technique of controlled brush application.” The sensitive handling of the four interlinked females and the delicate variation of colours, gives the style a unique identity. The diversity of the mosaic pieces, at times hollow squares, grants the canvas its dynamic textural quality. This painting was also awarded the first prize in figurative art in Rhode Island, US, in 2001. The composition with a large variety of shapes, incidentally, reminds one of the intricate works of Gustav Klimt, such as, ‘Adele Bloch-Bauer I’.

The painting, ‘It’s a dull day’, depicts three local women at a market place poised to sell their domestic products and waiting for buyers to show up. Although the serene expression on the faces defies the title, the rendering of the painting takes the lead. This is a remarkable multi-figurative composition, which has every flavour of the artist’s talent.

Another painting titled, ‘Women in harmony’ is the representation of the artist’s uninhibited mosaic style owing to her customary colour variations. The composition is, however, conventional though the rich textures that emerge from the scrupulous use of colours are inimitable and perhaps the artist’s hallmark.

Her paintings give the impression of mosaics with a different visual flavour, with mildly discernible grouts, that have been utilised tastefully. In addition to the unusual surface, the rare hues chosen by the artist have a range that can only be arrived at through extensive experience. At this point, the artist is experimenting with various possibilities that are visually attractive, through nimble handling of her characteristic palette.

“I like to use a lot of bright colours, especially blue, pink, orange, turquoise and sea green,” Iftikhar says. The artist has also displayed a few paintings where mosaic technique has not been used. The thick and layered brush strokes in these canvases, however, bear semblance to a mosaic-like patchwork which diversifies the artist’s command over spontaneous expression.

The consistency of work in her paintings portrays the artist’s struggle to discover new dimensions of the ancient art. Utilising mosaic forms, she fuses the figures into each other and blends them harmoniously with the background, giving her compositions an individual character. She believes in leaving the judgment to the viewers as to how they react to her paintings, but aims at giving a voice to the paintings so that the inanimate canvases can speak for themselves.