KARACHI: There are very few seasoned Pakistani artists whose works defy predictability. Nahid Raza is one of them. Every time she creates a new body of work, art lovers throng to it to see what fresh perspectives she has come up with in relation to both her art and life, which in her case are two sides of the same coin.
The latest exhibition of her acrylic paintings titled Virdh that commenced at the Canvas Art Gallery on Thursday reinforces this point. This time round, both her art and life have taken an overt spiritual turn, and it is quite exciting.
Nahid in her statement says that the show is based on spirituality, meditation and Sufism. It is true. However, she, a modest individual that the artist is, shies away from talking about the method she’s gone about doing it. By now she knows how to maneuver, and not just use, colours and shapes. By maneuver one does not mean manipulate. Nahid has become such a master at what she does that colours and shapes, like obedient pupils, understand the drift of her ideas. Against that backdrop, exhibit number one and 12 need a special mention. There’s a bit of geometry involved in the two pieces and in terms of shapes they are quite different from each other, as different as a square is from a circle. And yet, they signify the same thing: spiritual growth.
How so? Well, be it the illusion of a building image or that of a whirling movement, a vertical progress or a circuitous travel, for the Sufi mind (or heart) all of them lead to one divine path. This path, as they say, is the journey and not the destination. Of course, meditation plays an important role in it, for that too is an integral part of the journey.
The exhibition will remain open till July 28.
Published in Dawn, July 22nd, 2016
