Nahid Raza’s sixth floor apartment in Clifton, a few blocks away from the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, is much more spacious than the one she shared with her son Azfar Ali. That was essentially their workplace as they lived elsewhere.

If you enter her present apartment you pass through a passage, lined with works of art that takes you either to the kitchen and the dining area or to the lounge which is adjacent to what was supposed to be the master bedroom. Converted into her art studio, it is refreshingly different, and also much larger than her previous studio, where you had to hop and skip, if not jump, to avoid knocking a frame or stepping over tubes of acrylic.

Nahid’s (no one refers to her by her surname) studio like the rest of the apartment has milky white walls, which heighten the colours of her images. There is a window which doesn’t offer a refreshing view, but it does make it airy. She draws the curtain when she has to switch on the larger lights after sunset.

“I hate air conditioners. There is none in my house,” she says. “It’s too artificial for my liking. I am fine with the ceiling fans.”

These days she is working with a vengeance, if one may use the expression, on her monochromatic paintings of women in acrylic on canvas. She calls them black-and-white paintings. They will be on display at the exhibition she plans for September.

Exploring the private world of Nahid Raza and her studio

“You have to be an artist to know how wonderful it is to have your studio on the same premises as your bedroom and living room. I used to stare at the ceiling, lying on the bed in short bursts of sleeplessness. Now I can gainfully use the time in my studio painting to my heart’s content,” says Nahid.

The Delhi-born artist can no longer sit on a rug and paint. She has started working on an easel, while sitting on a small chair placed close to a wall. Beginning with the early morning session she spends most of her waking hours in the studio.

I notice the double audio cassette player sitting on a sideboard. It has been with her for years and gives her company when she paints. She likes to listen to instrumental music in particular.

Her driver-cum-attendant Naseeb Khan, who has been with her since his early teens, knows exactly where her different paintings are stored. He keeps the used and unused canvases methodically and stores the acrylic tubes and brushes in the right places.

I ask her where is her collection of pen-and-ink drawings of Jameel Naqsh and Zahoorul Akhlaque, but before she can respond Naseeb Khan points out their locations.

What I don’t see in her studio on this occasion are ashtrays, placed here and there, overflowing with cigarette butts. “One fine day I decided to give up smoking and now I don’t even sit in the room where anyone is drawing on his cigarette,” she says proudly.

But what I see somewhat out of place in her studio are three or four piles of a book mundanely titled Nahid Raza: Art Is Her Life by Marjorie Husain. It has been sponsored by art collector Anwar Tapal. The copies are for distribution among friends and well-wishers.

Nahid is not into photography but she trea­sures the pictures of her grandchildren which are placed on a shelf, within her view, in her well-lit studio.

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 28th, 2017