Zarah David and the fine arts department of the University of the Punjab, opened their eyes under the stern but passionate custody of the iron lady: Anna Molka Ahmad. The department was lucky enough to enjoy Ahmad’s association for years to come whereas, on the contrary, Zarah was not so fortunate. She was abandoned by her mother for marrying Colin David, the master figurative artist. After only few years, the couple parted ways.

These circumstances were enough to shape David as a passionate, insightful and expressive painter who, with a touch of sensitised appeal for the surrealistic technique, established her own painting style. Her painting presents a subjective approach, but at the same time, it has the quality of involving the viewer’s perception while looking at her compositions.

Most of the time, David’s paintings display a serene atmosphere with absorbing colours that now have become her signature palette. With these attributes, she arranged a show under the title of ‘P.S. {ART}’ at the Nishat Hotel, Lahore. The artist presented her diverse work of earlier days as well along with the latest creations; a self-portrait of 1964 attracted many eyes as portraits have never been her forte.

Board year 1964

Being a student of Khalid Iqbal, she has also been mesmerised by the effects that light of a certain spot can cast on the painter just before the rendering. Therefore, her landscapes with inexplicable ambiance, devised through the vast array of greens and blues or by the opacity of greys and whites, personify the artist’s innate fear of being left alone at a strange and deserted place.

Zarah David loves the dreamlike and mystifying ambiance on her canvases

The exhibition marked the colourful and diversifying phases of her work. The most recent of her paintings covered some social issues as well. One painting titled ‘Malala’ and another ‘Mercy’ portray David as a socially conscious artist who became inspired by the rapidly changing socio-cultural and socio-political patterns around her.

David is a surreal colourist who loves the dreamlike and mystifying ambiance on her canvases, visually created by the delicate and exquisite handling of colours.

Her palette represents an individual who longs for a peaceful and tranquil world where things do not perish. The artist uses her imagination to synthesise various colours that express the emotional and psychological patterns of the artist. On the other side, she composes one or two figures in this deep and transcendental atmosphere as they are lost in it, or going away from the onlooker, to find their way to unidentified destinations.

Imagination, emotions and individual or subjective reality have played a vital role in the evolution of modern art. These key elements are the main features of David’s work where she assimilates her heart-felt emotions with her unleashed imagination to let her colours spread across the canvas.

The artist’s personal life is a journey, where too often, she has been left alone to face the tidal waves of cruel time. More than once, she lost her most valuable relationships and felt the pain when home becomes a strange place.

In her paintings, Zarah David reproduces the perplexing ambiance, etched in her memory, through the serene yet lamenting colours that she puts on her canvas.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, June 15th, 2014