Viewing an exhibition of miniature artworks by Donia Kaiser mounted at Chawkandi Art Gallery, Karachi, recently, one gazed on diverse minute details of perfection and wondered at the fineness of the brushstrokes used. To appreciate each detail, one would need to gaze intently with a magnifying glass in hand. The artist’s ability to capture reality with what must surely be a one-haired brush is phenomenal.

In a painting titled ‘Sun and moon’, the artist portrays the figure of a boy clothed in jeans and T-shirt, and somehow the artist creates an ambience that fills the receptive viewer with emotion. The creases in a shirt that is slightly large for the slim youth, his slender arms and feet tucked beneath him as he gazes into an unknown future touch the heart. The layered darkness of the art is not a sign of pessimism but rather of the unknown, optimism is seen with the appearance of a golden sun about to rise and the beautiful blue of a graceful tree trunk adds to the beauty of the imagery. The artist’s use of mud as texture in the work is brilliantly handled and adds to the piquancy of several of the artworks.

Kaiser has a unique penchant for melding reality with fantasy in her imagery. The obviously treasured Siamese cat in a painting titled ‘Coddled’ sits on a cushion of blue silk. One must look closely to enjoy the pet’s face with a look wreathed in contentment, one can almost hear her purr. The background of the painting is the layered translucent signature work of the artist, with a red balloon floating aloft.

Donia Kaiser melds reality with fantasy in her imagery

In the painting titled ‘A blue tree’, Kaiser had created the graceful trunk of the leafless tree with branches spread as if caught in a dance pose. One finds a brilliant touch of colour is the presence of a red ball that is beginning to enter the composition.

Cosseted 2014, Photos by Fahim Siddiqi / White Star

Kaiser is an artist who retains the tradition of art by spending hours at a time on the work, and taking months to complete each piece. Her use of vibrant touches of colour in each composition, such as the bright gold and purple of a fish swimming in ‘A pool of mud’ is exhilarating and linked to the artist’s constant referral to nature.

During her student years at the National College of Arts, Lahore, the artist majored in miniature art and included in her minor subjects photography, sculpture, calligraphy, and printmaking each one of these subjects merge in suggestions seen to enhance the distinctive artworks. Since her graduation from the NCA in 2011, her work has been shown in exhibitions mounted in Dubai, Singapore and Argentina as well as Karachi and Lahore to appreciation.

Her desire for pictorial representation of the present time is seen in the two portraits of the same mischievous looking young woman titled ‘Green chilli’ worked with gouache and ‘Red chilli’ in a similar sunshine setting. The smiling angles of the same face replicated by Kaiser’s brushstrokes, bring to the audience a person one would really like to know and spend time with; forgetting for a moment the uncertainty of our times.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, December 28th, 2014