Written by: Nayha Jehangir Khan
Posted on: August 02, 2022 | 
| 中文
Still life with Gulcheen, Papaya and Tasbeeh by Rahat Naveed Masud
Rahat Naveed Masud has actively shaped a generation of emerging artists through her academic leadership as Dean of the Faculty of Art and Humanities at The College of Art and Design, University of the Punjab Lahore. Ambereen Karamat, founder of the digital art platform Khamsa has introduced a new segment called Artist of The Month, which features Masud’s latest paintings made exclusively for this showcasing. The artist compassionately draws parallels between various streams of nature through a combination of portraiture, figuration, landscape, still life and abstraction. In her painterly visualisations, the fruit tree is a central protagonist that shapes distinctive allegorical readings of the emotional, social, psychological and physicality of the life cycle. The viewer is invited into these soothing translucent hues, showing intimate and sensitive moments of solitude. The paintings have a cinematic quality as the viewer begins to create their own story for each protagonist.
Youth, Beauty and Dreams by Rahat Naveed Masud
Masud deliberately places styled and dense foliage holding ripened fruit over each subject. This descending wall of nature meets the horizon line, creating a uniquely immersive environment for the viewer. In the painting “Holiday Resort”, a reclining figure has her eyes closed listening to her earphones plugged into a mobile device, in the background are lush green rolling hills with wildflowers. This scenic balcony becomes a metaphor for transportative experiences of being alone, listening to music or reading a favourite book. The imagination begins to immediately recollect periods of restfulness and relaxation that are similar to the one being offered in the painting. Throughout her practice, Masud journeys within the complexities of the creation and consumption of nature. The conflicting reality of how fruit, that is of the earth, transforms itself into a commodity enjoyed by a select few in society.
Still with Pumpkin by Rahat Naveed Masud
In “Youth, Beauty and Dreams”, a preoccupied young woman is gazing into her mobile screen unaware of her surroundings, signalling a modern intervention of self-absorption through technology replacing the classical mirror reflection. The artist is interested in these states of self-reflection to create a visual bridge between the interior space of the subconscious and its manifestation as an exterior environment of nature. She immerses herself within these nurturing confines of fauna and flora, interrupting these classical images using elements of urbanism. These mediums of stimulation originate in technology through selfies or listening to music, sliding the subject into another state of mind. The cell phone becomes a gateway offering a multisensory experience with the ability to block off the environment, revealing its impact on consciousness. The painting technique in these works uses a combination of screen printing on canvas and oil paints. Masud masterfully controls the paint application rendering the backgrounds with pastel transitions that allow the brighter tones to vibrate in the foreground. In “Still life with Gulcheen, Papaya and Tasbeeh”, the background has been deliberately left unfinished creating optical texture mimicking wallpaper.
Rahat Naveed Masud with Saeed Akhtar
The colour palette of “The Fruit Tree” series is vibrant and joyful, while the viewer feels transported through the smooth brushwork and playful linework. The gestural life drawing is paired with natural light that evokes the spirit of spring. The viewer accompanies the artist on pathways and nature walks as seen in “Awe Struck”, where admiration of nature is paramount. The painting “In Communion” has a devout older man sitting alone in a garden with prayer beads in his hands. The artist calls on the elements of ageing to denote another perspective on the cycle of life. There is a stillness in the air with softly blended grass and a forest in the distance. The fruit tree in the painting hides the sky behind, pushing it to the foreground of the painting. This hypnotic scene feels otherworldly as the eye keeps travelling along the branches of the tree, repeatedly resting on the central figure.
In Communion by Rahat Naveed Masud
The women in Masud’s paintings can be read as strong, independent and willful. Their personal choices are their own, using aloneness as a medium to gain clarity of thought and process their life experiences through the therapeutic effects of nature. This series is the culmination of experimenting with modernistic painting techniques, and the imagery is based on observations set in today’s social behaviours. Shifting the narrative from the classical and passive depictions of women, Masud activates the psychological space by creating larger-than-life euphoric environments for her protagonists that leave behind restrictive domesticated interiors. These fruit trees are native and associations with each of them signify time and memory for the viewer. The emotive body language of the female subjects indicates that the artist deeply understands these joyful experiences creating a kind of self-portraiture.
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