September 25, 2004

In 93, the well known neo realistic painter Shakeel Siddiqui, about to take up a teaching post abroad, presented his sister Shaheen with a parting gift, the accoutrements of oil painting; paints, canvas, brushes and easel. A qualified interior designer, up to that time, Shaheen’s approach to painting had been tentative, working in watercolours to create pale landscapes of imagined scenery. Her major artistic interests were reading and writing poetry (she has produced three books of Urdu poetry) and classical music.

Briefly explaining to his sister how to mix the paints and prime a canvas, Shakeel went on his way, unaware of the direction Shaheen life was to take. Painting became her obsession, starting her on a path of trial and experimentation that continues to this day. Tenaciously determined to improve her art, she studied art from books and from other painters’ work.

She was fascinated by the techniques of pointillism and spent hours examining Jamil Naqsh’s paintings displayed at his museum adjacent to Momart. An individual style gradually evolved in which texture played an important role. Usually depicting a single figure or face, her work seemed to represent a mood or ambience rather than portraiture from life.

Shaheen painted in earnest, and in 1995, began to exhibit her work, first at a Karachi hotel and then in galleries and other venues in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Bhurban. Travelling abroad, she rolled up canvases, and in Paris and Rome, showed her work in group and solo shows, buying space rather than spending her allowance on food and shopping.

Through her efforts she held a solo exhibition in Paris in 2000, took part in a group show at the Michel Ray Gallery, Paris, in 2003 followed by another in Rome where her work was shown in a group displayed at the Carla Gucci Art Gallerie. Wandering about the major art capitals on her own, she spends hours in national museums and galleries, and particularly admires the lines of classic sculpture.

Her latest exhibition at the Clifton Art Gallery which assimilates suggestions of drapery in the work is, she says, inspired by the sculpture of ancient Rome with its flowing lines and elegance. The collection consists of approximately forty paintings in which a strongly outlined single form dominates a densely worked surface. There is a hint of trompe l’oeil in the painted surfaces that seem roughly torn: “Just as life is full of rips,” she says.

Working with earth-toned paints and blues, she uses a palette knife, her fingers and a brush to apply paint in layers, scratching and wiping, adding and subtracting to create the textural elements. The subject is the fragility of humankind in a world ripped of its norms.

Altogether, Shaheen Siddiqui has shown her work in sixteen solo exhibitions and several group shows. She talks of her brother’s achievements with pride and regards herself as a student. “I am totally self-taught”, she says, “One never stops learning in life.” Professionally qualified in interior design from the Rhodec International School of Interior Design and Decoration, Sussex, UK, Shaheen is currently taking classes at the Karachi Arts Council and at the Italian Cultural Centre.