Art bazaar: Emerging talent proves high art can grow bottom up
Holding on to her purple backpack, 19-year-old Fatima Zaidi stood in front of a painting she made for her mother. “When I first started working on this, my mother didn’t like it. She kept asking me why the petals were dripping,” said Zaidi, who is taking a gap year after completing her A-Levels from Karachi Grammar School. “I try to paint what I feel. It’s subtle. People see a landscape or a person. I paint reality. There is a misconception that there is only depth in surrealism. I paint normal things where no one is morphed.” She added that her priority was happiness.
With her silver bangles jingling, Zaidi opened up about her other work, one of which was a beautifully haunting portrait of a geisha with feathery eyelashes. “The geisha symbolises freedom. It’s like when you’re young and you see a good looking successful woman and you’re like I want to grow up to be her,” she talked about the portrait which leant against a pillar near the entrance. “She has a rebellious look on her face, as if she wants to fly but… Ah, gravity won’t let her.
Also in the exhibition will be two works by Simon Morris from his Pause series of paintings. These were first shown at the Dowse Art Museum at the launch of Rain Screen, his 2006 architectural collaboration with Athfield Architects and Fraser
