Zahrah Ehsan’s artistry is a decorous and bold treat for the eyes. There’s an overwhelming rutilance to her surfaces that lends her work the quality of dream-scape. The carnaval-esque palette and immersion into fantastical themes absorb the viewer completely at first impression. The fantastic luminosity of her canvases often carry messages that are feminist and self-interrogatory in nature. The beautiful tumult of colour serves as a prelude to the truth, often dark, enclosed within. Zahrah spoke to Afshan Shafi about her journey as an artist and of the creative visionaries that inspire her.

Please tell us about your background as an artist and your education in this regard.

I think I always knew that I would end up becoming an artist/painter, but was not really sure until I had a life changing ten minute conversation with my former O Level teacher, Farwa Tahir a day before my Art exam. During my time in Lahore Grammar School, I was fortunate to have teachers like her and Murad Khan Mumtaz as my O and A Level teachers respectively, who dedicated their time and saw the potential in me. Later I joined the National College of Arts, where I came across a diversity not only in terms of competent teachers, but also in terms of peers. I graduated with a Bachelors in Fine Arts majoring in Painting, and securing an honour for my thesis project. Both during and after my intensive incubatory training at the institution, I was able to undertake several exhibitions, projects and other similar enterprises. I think going to NCA was the best decision of my life.

Which artists, local or international, have  influenced or informed your point of view the most?

I do not think I can ever limit myself to just a couple of favourites. As I was trained to self-reflect during the process of my work, I developed a habit of looking at artists coming from different disciplines and not just looking, but also reading about them and their inspirations. There is an exhausting long list of both local and international artists that I believe have influenced my way of thinking. To name a few Krzysztof Wodiczko, Edward Hopper, Jeff Wall, Pipilotti Rist, Iqra Tanveer, Alex Katz, Rachel Whiteread, Dan Flavin, Huma Mulji, Rene Magritte…the list is never ending.

What’s integral to the work of an artist?

For an artist, there should be an innate understanding in making sure that your work is reflecting a marriage between research and skill. The artist’s work will speak in volumes only when the artist himself/herself is well informed about his/her work and is not shying away from the transformations that are taking place in the process.

What has been a seminal, life changing  experience in terms of your art?

I guess that was when my work began to criticise the commodified types of women’s roles in modern society. I realised this when I made my pink and blue dream-like paintings with plastic baby tub stuck on them in 3rd year of college, along with a video that was hugely inspired by a parody video and performance piece, Semiotics of the Kitchen by Martha Rosler, and also similar to Salima Hashmi’s 70’s segment called Handa Hubaalna from the show Taal Matol.

What themes do you pursue?

My work hearkens back to that sense of longing for what is perhaps, unattainable. Teacups, the colour pink and dollhouses act as a metaphor for the ideals that the protagonist in my images holds, all of which are somewhat unreal. These are figments of an overheated imagination. I am obsessed with the notion of childhood dreams shattering as we grow older. To attain the ‘happiness’ that girls are told to wait for; the ‘happiness’ that they are promised while they pour tea into their doll’s tea cup.

What’s your ultimate, favourite art work?

My ultimate favourite art work has to be Rene Magritte’s The Tempest. The strange, yet subtle arrangement of ordinary objects shown in the painting will never seize to amaze me.

How has your practice change over time?

I think my practice has only improved over time, and the more committed I am to this course of life the better it gets. It is almost addictive, if I count the years of practice that started when I was a student and decided to display works outside college. It has been a little over a year since I have gotten a studio after graduating three years ago, and there is no going back. According to a dear friend, this studio has given me a good show. I am waiting what else it brings out in me. Looking forward to the challenges ahead.

What superpower would you have and why?

I would love to enter all these paintings of artists like Hieronymous Bosch, Magritte, Edouard Vuillard and experience what’s happening inside the canvas that only shows us one perspective in its two dimentionality. Haha, something very similar to how Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck enter Munch’s Scream in the movie Space Jam and turn into that screaming man, or start melting when they enter Dali’s painting, The Persistence of Memory.

Name something you love and why?

The beach! I love the sound and the view of the waves crashing on the beach and how it naturally reflects the sky. The beach is the best place to have real conversations.

Name something you don’t love and why?

Clutter is something that I can bear with, but I loathe things lying around. The kind of routine that I have, I am not able to keep my room and studio clean at all times. But when I do, my studio mates are also unfortunately caught in the storm.

I am obsessed with the notion of childhood dreams shattering as
we grow older. To attain the ‘happiness’ that girls are told
to wait for; the ‘happiness’ that they are promised while
they pour tea into their doll’s tea cup

What is your dream project?

I would want to create an experiential party like setting in a given gallery space and would want to be there as a host, rather than as an artist displaying works. And no, I am not talking about the kind you saw in Alice in Wonderland. This is something that I am still working on.

Name three artists you’d like to be compared to.

Edward Hopper, Rene Magritte and Gerhard Richter.

What work of art do you wish you owned?

Infinity Mirrored Room – The Souls of Millions of Lightyears Away by Yayoi Kusama.

Which artist living or dead would you have loved to collaborate with?

I think I would be happy to collaborate with this Canadian artist, Jeff Wall. I have always been drawn to his staged photographs like The Destroyed Room and Mimic. I like how his photograph’s compositions are cinematographic and relatable at the same time.

What is an artistic outlook on life?

For me an artistic outlook on life simply means to acknowledge and embrace the highs and lows of your artistic journey, and to accept that an artist’s work makes them who they are and tells them where they stand.

What under-appreciated artist, gallery, or work do you think people should know about?

Leonora Carrington, a member of the surrealist movement, is well known as Max Ernst’s wife. I think she is one of the many under-appreciated women artists in the art world. I find her dreamlike, highly detailed fantastical paintings along with her life story extraordinary.

What’s your favourite thing you’ve ever created?

That is a tough one as all of my works are an outcome of a more personal struggle. But recently, one of my four new works that were shown at Canvas Gallery, Karachi, with the title Monologue is currently very close to my heart.

Which creative medium would you love to pursue but haven’t yet?

As for now, I have attempted almost all kinds of mediums that I was familiarised with in college, but I believe I have not been fully able to explore installations.

What memorable responses have you had to your work?

I remember my former A levels teacher, Murad Khan Mumtaz coming in as an external juror to NCA for a painting critique and mentioning how my painting was ‘well painted’, which was very unlike him. Similarly, I have had many other accomplished teachers, like Quddus Mirza, R. M. Naeem and Mariam Hussain, appreciating my work and their responses have really directed me to be more consistent with my practise.

Favourite or most inspirational place?

I do not think I have an inspirational place in particular. Any place can inspire me as long as I it can host art, music and conversation.

What are you working on as a future project?

I am working for a solo show at the moment. Details of the show will be disclosed soon.

Fine Art photography is a genre of art that is notoriously hard to master. Caught between a painterly ethic and an intent to expose truth, most practitioners falter and produce work that seems inauthentic. The artist/photographer Soofia Mahmood is free of such travails for her work is richly and profoundly emotive. Her images feature  mostly women as subjects and are often unutterably dark yet beautiful. Each image is a meditation on the possibilities of freedom and of the profound vulnerability of women in our society. In some of her work, she has used her own figure as a motif to confront the power and irresolution of societal impulses. A photograph that embodies most of her themes is entitled People I met, which  presents a crystalline background with a twine of butterflies in the foreground of the image. These winged creatures have been captured in motion yet are transfixed by an impossible ennui, an impossible stillness. This dichotomy of captivity and release, finds expression in most of her corpus of work. Soofia tells Afshan Shafi about her metaphorical and unnerving collection of images

How long has photography been a hobby and career of yours and what motivated you to get started?

I bought my first camera in 2009. I had left my corporate career in Karachi, my hometown, to be a trailing spouse to my then husband and had followed him to Lahore. Being without work, friends and connections, I found the space to breathe, which initially was scary and depressing. Unfamiliarity in one’s environment tends to make you a little disoriented until you realize that you can survive and even thrive in new circumstances. So I decided to explore my childhood dream of being an artist instead of looking for a job, as we were there for only six months. The confusion in my life helped me  approach photography neither as a hobby nor a career, which was wonderful. I did not make a transaction with art. I just developed an unconditional relationship with the camera.  It changed me and my life in a way I never anticipated.

I did not make a transaction with art. I just developed an unconditional relationship with the camera.  It changed me and my life in a way I never anticipated

When did you start taking photos? What made you decide to explore photography as a means of artistic expression?

I started taking photos right after I studied the DSLR (digital single-lens reflex camera) menu. My daughter was 3 years old at that time, so she was often my subject. I had the luxury of a chauffeur driven car at that time and Lahore was new to me. The driver we had was the most interesting Lahori character that I have ever met. He saw me fiddling with the camera in the lawn and told me that if I wanted to take photos of the city, he could take me to interesting places. With him, I got out of my sheltered cocoon. We went to akharhaas (local wrestler’s gyms) in old Lahore where his friendship with pehlwans (wrestlers) allowed a woman to step inside and photograph them. I went to a small, dark house where they were making kites illegally for basant. I went to the farthest corner of the canal and to Heera Mandi (Lahore’s historic red light district). A series started to develop. I called it Romancing Lahore. A pair of red heels bought from the Landaa Bazaar (thrift market) that he had taken me to travelled with us everywhere and was a prop in all my Lahore photos. They were not brilliant photographs as I was just learning the skill, but naturally I was drawn to concepts and props from the start. Just taking photos of the scenes around me was not satisfying for me. I added how I connected to the scene. The red heels with two pehlwans fighting in the background put me in the picture, discovering Lahore. This was much before I started doing self-portraiture. I did not plan anything, which was the beauty of it all, and it led me to explore photography as a medium of art and not documentation.

Who are your favourite photographers and what influence have they had upon your work?

I don’t really have favourite photographers. Photography as a medium of art is not that developed and remains largely shallow. I do have some favourite artists that inspire me. I am in love with Salvador Dali. His work is brilliant, but more so, his entire being embodied his art. His eccentricity depicts the fearlessness one needs to produce crude, crass and bold work that speaks the truth on so many levels and is not visible to many. I enjoyed the photographic series Philippe Halsman created in collaboration, Dali Atomicus. I also enjoy the still and moving work of Shireen Nishaat as the subject of her work is close to my heart.

Do you think talent for photography is something a person is born with?

I think every human being is born with the innate capacity to see life from a unique perspective. It is that perspective that is important to be artist of any medium. Over time, one’s life experiences either make you deepen that perspective or lose it entirely. Anyone can learn the skills. Everyone cannot have the sight. Photography especially is much easier to learn than any other medium. In this digital age, all you need is a DSLR and a Facebook page to call yourself a photographer. On the one hand, it is wonderful to see how this medium is accessible. On the other, it is diluting the possibility of photography being considered ‘art’ seriously. It is so easy to be lost in the romance of gadgetry that I feel this medium as a form of art does not get the respect, love, depth and hard work it deserves.

I have fought so much that I left a marriage, wrote articles after articles against the Sharia law, shaved my head, always wore clothes considered inappropriate and said things not suitable by the social standards

Where do you get your ideas? What predominant themes do you explore in your work?

My work is all about me: my emotions, life experiences, my skeletons in the closet, my beauty, my ugliness, my opinions and my truth. My self-portraiture journey started when I decided to leave my first husband. I used the medium to admit my raw emotions to myself to begin with and give them a representation in the form of light. When people started connecting with me to share with me how my work is impacting them, that is when I decided to continue to work and that my opinions and emotions matter to others.

The irony of organized religion, or the way a woman is perceived by herself and the society are themes often depicted in my work. These ideas are not coming from an ‘activist’ mindset. These are coming from my personal conflicts, experiences and situations I have dealt with and am still dealing with.

What do you feel is the most challenging thing about photographing what you do?

Being in front of the camera is the most challenging part of my work. I do not like being photographed generally. The only reason I started doing self-portraiture was because I was doing an art residency in Thailand, where I was again as a trailing spouse. I was given a tiny studio with glass walls to work in. It was an aquarium where people could watch you create your work. I had an emotion, leading to an idea and I had me, so I initiated. Over time, as the series developed, I started feeling differently in front of the camera. I wasn’t me; I was an idea, a concept and a subject. The challenging part is, it limits me sometimes in certain concepts (if only I was a contortionist). It has also spoiled me, as I am now used to working alone being behind and in front of the camera at the same time for so long.

Your work tackles issues of an overtly feminist nature. Please tell us more about your work in this regard and the response which these pieces have received.

I am a woman; I am a woman rebellious by Pakistani standards. I fought my family as a young girl, the society when I stepped out of the house, and all the stereotypes that have come my way. I have fought so much that I left a marriage, wrote articles after articles against the Sharia law, shaved my head, always wore clothes considered inappropriate and said things not suitable by social standards. I have fought so much that I am tired. The only fight left in me now is to express my opinions in my art without any fear of judgment.

I am a human being free of imposed gender standards and I do not accept any other treatment from the law or the society. That is what my work is about.

I have received mixed responses. From women, I receive mostly positive responses. Even if they cannot articulate their opinion, they bond with me over my work, like they know, and they agree, but won’t say it. I have received lecherous comments from men and colleagues, who thought my work invited men to harass me, especially when I was a single mother. I have received threats for being inappropriate. I have received love and commendation from people I respect and adore. It has been amazing in all honesty.

What work do you do on your photos to achieve the dark effect that so many of your fine art photos have?

I chuckled a bit after reading this question. I love to play with light. Most of my work is done with artificial lighting because I can control it to achieve the strong contrast that is my style. A lot of people assume that my work is the product of digital manipulation. It is not usually, unless the concept is designed that way. For me the thrill of the craft is creating a photograph with lights. Post production is a process that you use according to your concept. The raw product has to be well thought out and planned for it to go through the desired post process and deliver on its intent.

If you could photograph anyone in the world, without limitations, who would you choose and how would you shoot them?

I would love to photograph people with multiple personality disorders. I would give their multiple personalities tangible depictions. I would show the interaction of their multiple personalities with each other and with the world.

I would love to photograph the jhallee (homeless) woman who used to roam the streets of Islamabad and ate from the same bowl as the stray dogs that surrounded her.

I would love to photograph any woman who is willing to depict her truth without definition of the society or religion. Anyone who would risk breaking stereotypes self-imposed or otherwise and allows me to create her alternate reality.

Please tell us how you were inspired to create your latest work?

I have recently immigrated to Canada, after fighting with the system for making me my daughter’s legal guardian. I gave up on Pakistan and left. Here, I am struggling financially and emotionally without any reference to my history. My latest work is about surviving this phase and dealing with the emotions as a new immigrant. It is called Project Small as I am living in a tiny studio apartment with my daughter and husband. I do not have any props or studio gear or the money to afford it. After struggling for a few months, I decided to start creating work in the same small living space with no additional cost on props. The work is a mix so far from being about the mundane, which as an immigrant is also a novelty in the new environment, to being about much deeper self-introspection. Some pieces are just angry retorts to the stereotypes I come across, mostly from the Pakistani community based here. I hope in the coming months, it would take some direction, depending on where life takes me.

What are a few pieces of advice you find yourself offering most frequently to aspiring or emerging photographers?

Connect your craft to yourself and give the medium the respect any artist would give to his/her tools. And don’t just take photos, make them.

If you had to pick one series as your favourite, which would it be and why?

Forgive Me is my favorite series to date. It reflects a major turning point in my life when I relinquished the guilt I was still carrying as a woman, the guilt of being a bad wife who left, the guilt of being a bad mother for leaving her father, the guilt of being a bad Muslim for not agreeing to abide, the guilt of not being thin enough, or young enough or beautiful enough, the guilt of not being a man. It was a heavy burden that would make me second guess myself often and depicted my own hypocrisy of fighting for my rights while feeling guilty at the same time.  I let go and that series represents that. Everyone changes with time, but some changes are more drastic. This one was a drastic change that made me different, a different that I finally liked.

Australia based artist Nazia Ejaz’s work is current and thoroughly expressive on many levels and touches upon relevant queries regarding identity and culture in an expatriate lifestyle. She talks to Saba Ahmed about her art, life in Australia and her mother Madam Nur Jehan’s influence on her

What influences drive your work?

Two distinct narrative threads run through my work: one is my response to my lived experience and another parallel one is about the exploration of the medium and engagement with global art discourse. I think that both investigations work side by side. On the one hand, you can engage with your emotions and everything that’s happening around you and try and interpret that through your work, the conceptual matter. On another level, I try to engage with what’s happening in the art world today. The materials that I use and their limitations and the way I test those limitations informs my work as well. I think both aspects are very important and interesting to me and they keep me engaged, the conceptual and the material.

How do you decide between mediums, such as paintings and installations and what informs your decisions?

I really enjoy the idea of working between mediums. In fact, the work itself is about being in between. The conceptual premise of the work is about being inside and outside. If you’re inside something, then you’re outside something else. The fact that my work moves between mediums also fits in with the concept and it doesn’t limit itself to any specific medium like sculpture or painting. I’ll photograph something and then I’ll paint it and then take a photograph of that painting and then I’ll do something else with it. As far as the medium is concerned, my choices fit in with what I’m thinking about conceptually as well. That’s what I find interesting at the moment.

My love for Lahore I think is connected to my relationship with my mum (Madam Nur Jehan). She’s not the focal point of my work but she’s linked to everything that influences it. We’ve always had eyes on us being so and so’s children and this perspective is something that I’ll be looking into for a long time through my work

Which mediums do you most commonly work with?

The jaali (screen) is what has inspired these paintings. The jaali was in turn inspired by some paintings I had done earlier. So, you see, the work moves back and forth. I use materials that are at my disposal and use whichever medium I feel like working with at that time. It keeps me interested in the work. More recently, the screen has translated into grids and patterns, which I’ve used metaphorically in the three wall paintings in my most recent show.

Apart from traditional mediums, like photography, painting and sculpture, I use things such as plastics and mirrors, and light and shadow. I plan to use mirrors in future works, because mirrors are also about here and there and I enjoy playing around with the philosophical implications of that.

Tell us more about the jaali and being the ‘other’.

The installation of the jaali fits in with my concept of the experience of our environment. I feel that the experience of our environment is a mediated experience in so many aspects of our life, whether it’s gender, nationality or religious affiliation. And to anything that is different, we respond through these affiliations. So the jaali is almost like a screen which is there almost all of the time, especially in our interactions with other people. Being ‘the other’ myself, living in Australia and coming back to visit Pakistan, where I’ve lived away from for 11 years and before that for 4 years when I was away at college, I find that I’m very deeply rooted within this society, but at the same time I’ve always been on the outside of it.

The jaali is multipurpose and, in my work, it also refers to how sometimes truth or reality can get covered up deliberately or sometimes unwittingly. The jaali is also used extensively in Islamic architecture. Throughout South Asia, you can see it used as a shield. I’ve used that as a metaphor for talking about separation. It also directs the gaze, making it an interesting metaphor with which to work. At the end of the day, it’s about the shifting perspectives, because everything depends on which side of the jaali you are on, either you’re inside or you’re outside and, on both sides, the perspective is very different. It becomes a major concern when you come across it all the time. Once you start realising that, you begin to notice it everywhere and in everything. It’s not other people but it’s your own personal journey and how you respond to these situations that determines who you are. That has been a main area of investigation for me.

What time of the day do you like to work?

Well, I’m a mother of two, which means that apart from taking care of my children, I work all the time. When you’re younger and single, you have the luxury of choosing what time of the day you work as opposed to when you have children you work at whatever time is available to you. I do like to paint during the day because I need natural light, so I’ve got to work around my children, especially since I live abroad and don’t have the support system that we do back home. When my kids are at school, I paint and do other work while they’re asleep.

How is your work received differently in  Pakistan and abroad?

The work was very well received in Australia. Obviously it takes time for people there to understand the metaphorical implications, but there are people there that can engage with the work. Where I exhibited was a non commercial hub of galleries and is frequented by a number of people that are connected to the art world and already engage with art, art history and what’s happening now in the contemporary art scene. It’s not difficult for them to take in the symbolism in my work. However, some of them are not well versed in Indo-Islamic art history where some of the features of my work are coming from. But thankfully so far I’ve received a good response.

Lahore is home territory for me and it was really important for my colleagues in Lahore to see my work as well. It’s a lovely feeling. The responsiveness of the art world and the community that was present and supportive was heartening.

What role did your mother (Madam Nur Jehan) play in your art?

She always encouraged whatever I did and she was always an inspiration for me in terms of her attitude towards my work. My sisters and I are all hard working and that comes from our mother because we’ve seen her work ethic and how hard she worked throughout her life. For me, my work is strongly connected to Lahore and, again for me, Lahore is all about her. My love for Lahore I think is connected to my relationship with my mum. She’s not the focal point of my work but she’s linked to everything that influences it. We’ve always had eyes on us being so and so’s children and this perspective is something that I’ll be looking into for a long time through my work.

How do you feel about the current art scene in Pakistan?

Take miniature painting, for example, and the boost it’s gotten from internationally acclaimed artists, such as Shahzia Sikander. Pakistani artists are a force to be reckoned with all over the world. We have so much young creative talent and institutions support it, but I would love to see some support from the government as well. In Australia, a lot of artists would not be able to produce art without the grants they receive. They’re doing non commercial work all through government grants or public artwork commissions.

I recently saw that fantastic Birdhouse commission outside NCA and I think it’s great. I believe that art belongs in the public domain and would love to see it come out of galleries and be displayed in public spaces. In a gallery, only a select few get to see it. An artist’s job is to think about life and to illustrate it in the way a historian might document it or a writer might interpret it. It becomes richer with interaction because you need the viewer to complete the work.