Women artists: Pakistan
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Women artists: Pakistan
The genius of women
By Fahad Rehman
Women artists have always paid the price for their gender since it is men who have mostly been considered ‘masters’ of art and creativity and women have at best been considered imitators of these master artists. The work of women artists has traditionally never been given the artistic space and recognition it truly deserves. An old New Yorker cartoon depicts a group of prehistoric women painting images on the wall of a cave. One of the women suddenly pauses in her work and asks: “Does it strike anyone as weird that none of the great painters have ever been men?” This parodies the obvious gender bias that society has against women artists, as it is always assumed that cave paintings were made by prehistoric men even though there is no proof for this assumption. Although the women’s artistic movement of the 1970s, coupled with feminism has brought unprecedented recognition of the brilliance of women artists, even today the gender bias still thrives to a large extent.
This International Women’s Day saw a unique celebration of the artistic expression and outstanding ability of the women artists of South Asia. The Hamail Art Galleries in Lahore hosted a grand group exhibition of 70 women artists from Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan. This event garnered considerable attention and buzz amongst the art aficionados of Lahore, and was highly applauded. An artistic event at this scale dedicated solely to women artists from Saarc countries is truly an achievement to be recognised and cheered. Our women artists deserve platforms like these in order to gain a legitimate space for artistic expression.
The paintings on display varied greatly on all aspects; from design, texture, medium, to theme. The main objective of the exhibition was to promote the work and genius of women artists from Saarc countries; therefore there was no particular unity or coherence in the theme and display of the paintings although there was a predominance of paintings related to women’s issues in general. “We did not specify that the paintings should be related to women’s issues as we wanted the female artists to send what they considered suitable and representative of their work,” Mrs Nusrat Jamil, the Curator at Hamail Art Galleries, explained.
The paintings that caught the most attention of the public and were highly demanded were related to women’s issues, as the exhibition opened in the backdrop of International Women’s Day. Bangladeshi artists had all sent paintings that were very relevant to the occasion and were sold the most. One of the most prestigious women artist displayed at the exhibition was the renowned Bangladeshi artist, Kanak Chanpa Chamka. Her paintings depict scenes from the lives of tribal women, which are rich in detail and emotion. “Ms Kanak Chamka hails from a tribal community herself, and this is why her paintings are so informative and real.” Mrs Nusrat Jamil commented.
Professor Salima Hashmi is one of the most well-known and influential Pakistani artist and educator. Her work adds greatly to the range of masterpieces displayed in the exhibition. An underlying concern for the subjectivities, emotions and everyday experiences of women is of primary significance in most of her displayed work. The simple ordinary everyday scene should be interpreted as an expression of the most significant, deep, and characteristic moments of a women’s existence. A women’s whole life, feelings, desires and existence caught in a moment of routine ordinariness.
One of the most fascinating artistic displays in the exhibition was Amna Ilyas’s sculpture pieces. She used two women models for her Plaster of Paris sculptures, which make a strong statement on women’s oppression. Two female figurines are covered in a big piece of cloth sitting with their heads bowed in submission under the enveloping chador. The paradox in the sculpture is that the figurines are in fact completely nude underneath the cover of the chador. The artistic piece can be interpreted as a symbol of the manner in which women’s bodies are the focus of society’s oppression and concern. Our patriarchal society tries to shame them of their bodies but cannot completely take away their pride in themselves.
Numerous paintings on display show a justified concern on the state of a woman’s life in oppressive patriarchal societies; in fact it is the underlying theme in most of the pieces on display. Images of women associated with cages, especially caged birds, are usual symbolic expressions of the lack of freedom and equality in our contemporary societies. These paintings are an attempt to break the constraints of patriarchy and speak out against the injustice. The artists use the medium of art to finally express the daily sense of oppression that they feel. The fact that this emphasis on gender, and how it affects almost every aspect of life, is being highlighted so successfully is enough to appreciate the need for more such promotions of women artists.
The dilemma of the women’s artistic movement and greater concern for gender in art is that the work of female artists is viewed only through the limited perspective of gender. The significance of a women’s artistic creation is attributed to the fact that it is made by a female, and not the message and merit of the artistic piece itself. The important influences of ethnicity, history, personality, class, religion etc. are all ignored in interpreting the significance of the creation. The need of the time is to realise that gender solely should not be the criterion to either ignore or celebrate a woman’s ingenuity as she should be seen as an individual first and foremost. This balancing act can only be achieved once women artists have parity with their male counterparts and are considered worthy, necessary and equal individuals.
Women in art
Breaking the glass ceiling
By Niilofur Farrukh
THE glass ceiling in the corporate world that deprives women of top jobs exists in all fields but in the visual arts it was challenged in Pakistan soon after 1947. In this field where a high premium is put on creativity, nepotism can have no feet. Only a passion to develop talent and a vision to sustain it brings triumph.
Two very important women artists who were instrumental in shaping the blueprint of Pakistan’s art world were Zubeida Agha and Anna Molka Ahmed. Zubeida Agha, with her 1949 show just two years after independence, boldly brought modern art experiments into the public space. The fact that she was lambasted by the art critics of the day did not in any way deter her and she went on to study art in the UK and then returned to become a potent force.
Her art was significant for its radical approach but her untiring effort to establish The Contemporary Art Gallery in Rawalpindi as the springboard for emerging talent from both wings of the country is her most important legacy, vital as it was in the promotion and acknowledgment of artistic innovation in the country.
Anna Molka Ahmed’s sphere of influence was centred round art education. Pakistan owes a great debt to her for preventing the closure of the Fine Arts Department of Punjab University, the only place of higher art education for women. After Partition, when she lost most of her students to the Hindu exodus, to save the department she went knocking on doors to convince parents to send their daughters to her.Anna Molka’s pragmatic vision shaped the department to give the country not just good artists but well-trained art teachers. She felt this would enable her students to support themselves while consolidating art education in the young country. In the absence of exhibitions she set the ball rolling in Lahore by organising many important early shows at the Arts Council, Lahore.
Her own art was thematically diverse for she enjoyed doing portraits as much as monumental canvases on disasters and afterlife subjects. She was probably the only woman artist who ventured into busy bazaars and villages with her students to paint on site.
These feisty and strong-willed authoritative figures were achievers at a time when the social environment was not conducive to working women and far from welcoming for women artists. They struggled every inch of the way to achieve goals and put the first cracks in the glass ceiling above which only male artists could aspire to go. They became role models for a generation of talented women artists who found more opportunities to study as the National College of Arts opened its doors to women and in Karachi two schools were set up in the ’60s.
The collective presence of women artists was recognised at a landmark exhibition in the late 1970s when Ali Imam invited 12 women artists to participate in a show at his Indus Gallery. This momentous event showcased a different sensibility that was to become mainstream in the decades to come.
The crisis in the field of women’s rights sparked off by the controversial Hudood ordinances pushed protestors to the streets in the 1980s and the work of women artists too echoed this outrage and began to take up women’s issues. What was begun tentatively by a few grew into a confident visual expression in which the personal became political in potent iconographies.
For women artists the 1990s and the new century have been about strengthening gender identity while expanding the contextual discourse. Their art has collapsed boundaries between content and material. It has assimilated the popular culture of the bazaar and the street in search of a non-hierarchal creative trajectory. It participated in the revitalisation of a traditional art form, the miniature painting.
In the large body of work that has emerged, women artists do not shy away from using the female nude but it has been without the objectification of the male gaze and often to further the discussion on the female body as a tool in the power agenda of abuse and repression.
Women artists, almost as if returning to a deeply embedded genetic memory, have reclaimed the needlecrafts which were once used to express love and creativity in the domestic domain. It has entered their paintings, sculpture and installations in narratives of personal loss and the collective anxiety and fears of this troubled century.
Art education remained the mainstay and women took the initiative to open institutions in Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore. Today all major art schools in Karachi are headed by women and in Lahore the figure is three out of four. In conservative Peshawar the fine arts department has a woman head. Hundreds of women faculty members and thousands of girl students hold sway as the majority in these institutions.
As art writers, gallerists and curators the statistics are in favour of committed professional women. Women art critics and historians have published the largest number of books in the field in the last decade, just as prolific and informed women author art reviews and columns in broadsheets and monthlies. Recently four women founded the magazine on contemporary art, NuktaArt, to expand the art discourse on issues within the field.
Presently the longest-running gallery in the country, the Indus Gallery, is run by Shahnaz Imam, not just to preserve her husband’s bequest to the art world but also because it has been an integral part of her life for over three decades. As art entrepreneurs, women are the force behind a majority of the galleries in Karachi and the same is true for some art spaces in Lahore and Islamabad.
In the spirit of the pioneers, women in the visual arts in Pakistan continue to challenge the norms through activism and have made important interventions. The Laal Foundation was established by the ceramist Sheherezade to save her artist husband’s legacy when state art institutions were complacent on the issue. ASNA, a three-woman initiative, has hosted three International Ceramics Triennials to give Pakistani ceramists a platform and Vasl, the artists’ collective, had many women among its founders.
This paradigm shift in little over half a century was made possible by women’s inherent ability to adapt to adversity with creative solutions and to use the power of passion to fuel their success. This has been the woman energy that subverts social canons and challenges the patriarchal covenant of the glass ceiling.
asnaclay06@yahoo.com
