LAHORE: Creativity whether in the form of colours or words or any other artistic expression is an act of defiance that goes beyond the cries of victimhood to become slogans of resilience. Hamama Tul Bushra’s artworks on display at the O Art Space in Gulberg have blatant resilience writ large on them.

Having educational background in graphic designing, Bushra moved to paintings to make a statement, exploring her own unique style. She says as she has a background in graphic designing, her style must be informed by it.

“My inspiration comes from the artists like Gustav Klimt, Henri Matisse, Paul Gauguin etc as well as Art Nouveau (New Art). You can call it Desi new art—an amalgamation of graphics and realism.” Despite drawing inspiration from the western masters, there is uniqueness in her style grounded in eastern colours and indigenous culture though she takes on contemporary themes.

Bushra did her Bachelor’s in Graphic Design from the National Art College (NCA) and then Master’s from University of Missouri -- Kansas City (UMKC). She was working as graphic designer while pursuing her PhD during the Covid when she made a shift towards painting.

“When I was a student at the NCA in 1980s, there were no computers and we used to paint posters by hand and the posters always had prominent colours. The colour selection in my paintings comes from that (posters) and my art is rustic, close to nature.”

Bushra’s collection on display at the O Art Space has not been exhibited before. Some of them are really provocative portraits taking a feministic stance of rebelliousness. Her style is marked by bold exaggerated overblown colours that correspond to the subject matter. The figures in the paintings look the onlookers into the eyes--the Mona Lisa effect, as if posing a challenge to them.

“I always liked painting women and girls, especially their faces. Two phenomena struck the world almost simultaneously, Donald Trump and Covid. Like others, I was stuck at home in Kansas, meanwhile women’ marches started happening. There was Aurat March phenomenon happening in Pakistan too and I got inspired by it. My feelings got translated into my artworks.”

Bushra says that as a student in Lahore even during the Gen Zia era, though she used to ride a motorbike, the restrictions imposed on women and girls in society were taken as natural. She never realised how many restrictions were there on women until she moved to the US in 1995. “After moving to the US, I realised the restrictions that women and girls have to face in Pakistani society, which suppresses them.”

The defiance in the expressions on figures in Bushra’s works and characters is one is their prominent traits. Her acrylic paintings on canvas have been titled Zindagi Sey Darty Ho, Waiting, Adam Aur Hawa, and Four Sisters, besides a series of paintings titled woman, all portraying daring women characters challenging the traditional social norms. There are bold blues, yellows and reds with provocative poses of women characters who are mostly alone but confident. Despite living in the US, the subject matter of Bushra’s painting is sub-continental with prominent eastern colours, steeped in her native indigenous culture.

“I paint my own reality,” she says about her style and subject matter.

Bushra has displayed her works at the Chawkandi Art Gallery and Canvas Gallery in Karachi, Muse Art Gallery in Lahore and Lower Narthex Gallery, Kansas, US, too before her ongoing exhibition, titled Common Grounds, along with works of Naela Aamir, a teacher at the Punjab University.

Naela is exhibiting her oil paintings focused on natural phenomenon, trees and flowers. In her statement, she says, “Being restricted to the inner santum of one’s life, during the pandemic lockdown, abetted my vision to focus on the genre of still life painting as a means of my artistic expression. The imposed solitude accelerates the inward journey of an artist, thus creating artwork that is reflective of deeper awareness and connection of the micro with macro”.

The exhibition will continue until Nov 11.

Published in Dawn, November 8th, 2024