An art lover friend, during the course of our conversation about the pandemic on the cellphone, switches to a pleasant subject when she informs me that the well-known artist Nahid Raza is working on a new series of paintings.

Seeing is believing. So I visit Raza, an old acquaintance, and discover that after a two-year break, which was forced on her by a nasty fall that broke her leg, she has picked up her paintbrush once again. The one difference is that she no longer sits on the floor when painting; now her canvas is placed on an easel.

Kohat-born Naseeb Khan, who doubles as her chauffeur and handyman at home, picks up the canvases and displays them for me, while their creator looks at me for my reaction. I maintain safe distance with her but not with her paintings.

As I sit down, my eyes catch a glimpse of a black-and-white reclining picture of Audrey Hepburn stuck on the beam of the part of the living room which serves as her studio.

I am told that her new series titled ‘Alone’ is to comprise 26 paintings of either two to three feet or two to four feet, all done with acrylic on canvas. “I don’t work with oil any more,” she says. “Acrylic is water-based and dries up fast.”

For once, Nahid Raza’s perennial subjects — women — don’t look angry and defiant. They come across as cool, calm and collected

What one cannot fail to notice is that, quite unlike her previous series, ‘Alone’ does not comprise textured paintings. The surfaces are smooth and the canvases are embellished with what Raza calls ‘flat colours’.

“You are a sexist. You only paint women,” I provoke her. She takes me seriously and blurts out. “What’s wrong with that? I am a woman. I feel strongly that a woman has a more important role to play than a man. She is a mother, a sister, a daughter and a wife, and she plays each role more intensely than a man plays his,” says Raza, who brought up her two children Zainab and Azfar as a single mother. She faced what seemed like endless difficulties for years, emerging eventually successful. Her daughter, also an artist, is in the UK where she, according to her mother, has made a name for herself. Her son is in the infotainment field.

The one feeling which an observer will have after taking a good look at her new canvases is that her women no longer wear expressions of anger and defiance. They look cool, calm and collected.

The colours Raza is using in her present series are familiar — flaming red, maroon and dark orange, not to speak of olive green, but she springs a surprise on me when she shows me two paintings of women dressed in bright orange. One female is holding a flower while the other has a pigeon to give her company. Yet another canvas shows a woman in white, which is again a rarity as far as Raza’s oeuvre is concerned. All the ladies wear expressions of contentment.

There are birds in some paintings, all painted in white. The ones I can recognise are pigeons.

As many as 15 canvases show tapestries of squares behind women. The squares, measuring an inch, feature motifs that are all pleasant, such as birds, fish, the sun, moon, flowers and, of course, women. “They are all symbolic,” she claims.

All the paintings show single women, except one with a mother and daughter, and another, more interestingly, portrays five females, each oblivious of the presence of others. Three canvases have already been bought by art collectors who can’t wait for the works to be displayed in galleries. So, the 2007 Pride of Performance winner has to work on three more.

“You must write about my other passion, which is teaching painting to youngsters,” she says, as she limps her way to the door to see me off, “and whether you like it or not, none of them belongs to your gender.” For once, she dons an impish expression.

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 31st, 2020