Just Me and Her was the first work by Amna Rahman I encountered at the exhibition ‘Department Store’, which was held in 2017 and curated by Muhammad Zeeshan at the Sanat Initiative.

In that portrait of two female figures, the artist held a rose in her left hand while her right clasped the hand of her companion sitting with her. The figures were painted in earthy tones while their outfits, red and green respectively, added visual nuance to the composition. Their direct gaze was suspicious — it unsettled me, questioning my purpose — however, I was simultaneously comforted by the portraits’ intimacy.

Rahman’s recent show, ‘Quest of the Self’, explores, in her own words, “how people carry themselves.” Her paintings in this iteration are filled with portraits of herself, friends and lesser-known acquaintances. Here, the concept of the ‘self’ sets the tone of her compositions.

The psychological ‘self’ is a perception of us that engages with our personalities, viewpoints and behaviours. Rahman captures the “structures of a person”, including herself, in a ghost-like manner in these works. The three lightly painted visages outside of the eponymous figure in Tailorbird Orbits Around Deena’s Unflinching Eyes are eerie, indicating movement, moments and self-discernment.

The liberated atmosphere of Amna Rahman’s figurative paintings conceals an innate sense of a trapped psychology

In Night Call Apparitions, Rahman paints two brunette young women seated on a couch in the background staring directly at the viewer while their bleached blonde-haired doppelgangers glance askew in the foreground of the painting. The doubt and intimacy from her previous figures seen in Just Me and Her have been swapped with self-cognisance and subtle hints of distance, even though the two figures are seated closely.

The emotive familiarity in her earliest works is taken over by an innate sense of self-awareness, emanated fiercely by the figures. Two types of energies clash here that may be undeliberate by the artist: the figures are physically liberated but psychologically trapped, both in and outside of themselves.

The garden-set Soliloquy in an Unconscious Realm and her full-bodied self-portrait in An Unspoken Soliloquy emit a foreboding absent in Rahman’s previous works. The artist establishes a dialogue between the two paintings — owls attack a fully visible rodent in the former painting that emerges in the latter. In a way, the self appears in and out of Rahman’s subconsciousness, brought to life in these works.

Rahman’s swarthy bodies tempt us in probing if these figures are real or imagined. Who are they and what is their relationship with the artist and each other? Are they familiar or mere posers? The women in the paintings seem to know exactly who they are before we can even engage with their identities. This perception is reflected through their postures, facial expressions and the paraphernalia or the landscapes surrounding them.

Rahman’s figures are South Asian. However, they recall work of American artist Alice Neel (1900-1984), whose multi-racial, contemporary and discernibly silhouetted female bodies of all ages are marked with a high emotive quotient. However, unlike Neel’s unabashed energy, Rahman is holding herself back.

The figurative distinctiveness in Rahman’s work can channel more intensity, a capacity lingering underneath her portraits, waiting to be freed. Before she creates another body of work that traps itself in repetition and artistic stagnancy, Rahman must fully embolden her expression — sensually, inspirationally and figuratively — by painting with more nerve than she has exhibited thus far.

‘Quest of the Self’ was displayed at Canvas Gallery, Karachi from August 1-10, 2023

The writer is a Fulbright scholar, art historian, critic and an industrial designer. She can be reached on
Instagram @pressedpulpandink
and Twitter @nageen_shaikh

Published in Dawn, EOS, August 27th, 2023