An emerging young painter Ussama Naveed was born to an architect in Lahore in 1988. He was quite young when his family moved to Islamabad in 1995. Interested in arts and crafts at his junior school, he used to make drawings and sell them to his schoolmates with the help of one of his friends.

“The architectural models made by my father were my early source of inspiration. I used to make small houses from junk, cardboard and corrugated sheets, and drawing cartoon characters from Disney World was a routine during my childhood,” he vividly recalls.

Finding an environment at home that was conducive to his artistic impulses and encouraged by his father, he joined the fine arts department of the National College of Arts, Lahore.

“As compared to school where I was the only one known for my drawing skills, situation was quite different at the NCA. Competing people with refined skills was really tough. During the second year, I developed a passion for painting and sculpting,” he relates.

After remaining a bit confused whether to choose sculpture or painting as major subject, he finally went for the latter. “I opted for painting because I felt more comfortable with the teachers dealing with the painting students,” he added.

“I was yearning to find an expression of my own and at the same time coping with the habit of getting disappointment over hurdles and small failures,” he explains.

During studies, Ussama got attracted to printmaking and did a lot of photography exposing the street life of Lahore, especially the Walled City.

“I enjoyed a lot learning and experimenting with the printmaking techniques. While doing photography, the street life fascinated me a lot but I was still trying to find a narrative and conceptual justification for my artistic expression,” he adds.

He continued photography, printmaking and sketching in a state of mental chaos while groping for a direction. Responding to scattered works, the teacher warned him that he was going to repeat the final year if failed to concentrate and produce quality work.

“That was a terrible situation. During the hot summer days of May, most of the students used to work at their homes due to power outages in college. I had an empty studio in college and it became a great subject matter to paint the studio interior. After a week of strenuous effort, I created a painting which was a pleasant surprise to me. The encouraging response gave me confidence”.

“Due to religious concepts I don’t want to paint human figures. So I decided to paint cityscape at the time when there is silence and the streets are almost empty,” he narrates.

The works portraying studio spaces were followed by the street scenes which he painted during summer vacation. He continued it and transformed his photography and street wandering experience into stunningly beautiful visuals. He paints in mellow tones employing thin layers of oil paint on canvass.

His works carry a strong feeling of intimacy with the places he paints. A silent gloomy mood dominates the expression. After finishing his academic studies early this year he is working as a visual artist with a couple of group shows to his credit.