Written by: Nayha Jehangir Khan
Posted on: December 19, 2022 | 
| 中文
Nazia Ejaz at the opening of her show at the Tanzara Gallery
Nazia Ejaz orchestrates a symposium of colour and poetry through her solo presentation, “Full Circle”, currently on display at Tanzara Gallery. The visual language here is gilded between structural elements of line and form interconnected with motifs inspired by nature, light and life. A series of visual notations are spread across the paintings anchored within heavy structural lines creating an armoury of trees guarded by the vibrant colour fields of green, blue and orange. As viewers walk through the gallery space encountering these immersive colour fields, there is an accompanying piece of poetry written by the artist that initiated these spatial explorations. The poem begins with the verses: “Eve - I see her as this miraculous thing of beauty. I see her strong spirit and her shining heart. My Eve is Magnificent.”, establishing a deep connection with the origins of femininity. A reclamation of the female narrative can be experienced through the sets of series depicting landscapes, representational imagery, figuration and abstraction.
The Colour Green
The translucent quality of paint has an iridescent shine and gloss resembling highly saturated stained glass, the light radiating from “The Colour Green”, has a gravitational force drawing in the viewer. The staging is mysterious with distant views of mountains and waves, the luminosity of the green paint here is cosmic, resembling the rhythm of the aurora borealis. Nazia is the daughter of legendary singer Madam Noor Jehan and has grown up with a close relationship with music. She draws inspiration for her paintings directly from personal life and sensory experiences, translated into visualisations of shapes, motion and line drawing in her paintings. In the “Unstoppable” series, each colour is given a separate painting creating a striking sequence with a central object in the form of a densely spread-out tree. The tree here is symbolic with connotations of creation, life and growth. The passage of time can be felt between each colour field as the Phthalo Green transitions to Cadmium Yellow and shifts to Phthalo Blue. As a painter, the artist is highly aware of the relationship between colours and their transformation through mixing.
Unstoppable IV
The viewer is stimulated through a combination of sensory and emotional experiences. The illusive nature of the paintings have been carefully designed using optical colour correlations as seen in the “Full Circle” series. The repetitive layering of hexagonal shapes has a cohesive and interconnected layout creating a depth of field. A network of cells that capture a portrait of aliveness within the body seen through a microscopic lens. These paintings are simultaneously landscapes of the body as well as modern abstractions using geometry as the central subject matter. They are an invitation to transcend the boundaries of representation into a more visceral iconography of emotions. The blue and gold here feel intimate and familial, a quality that is present in all the blue paintings within the exhibition. “Ocean in a drop” depicts a figure with her back to the viewer, gazing directly into the “Full Circle” paintings creating a pictorial echo of the artist and the viewer in a moment of uninterrupted connection. The same figure is seen in “Every Story is Us”, but this time the background is a bright orange with an opening between branches of the tree acting as an extension of the figure. This passageway frames the figure perfectly, with painterly lettering and scribbles hanging in the middle ground becoming a portrait depicting revelation.
The Walls are made of songs, and the floor dances - l
The artist uses the formation of a grid to symbolise her art explorations in the “The Walls are made of songs, and the floor dances” series, each section transitioning and changing, multiplying and merging while the foreground is inhabited by static trees. The sequence here begins with a multicolored and symmetrical grid into the artist's iconic blue and gold, with a similar landscape of forests in the foreground, but the last painting reveals the impact of evolution with a heavily abstracted version of the tree spread across the entire canvas. These series of paintings create an emotional analogy depicting the impact of the artist’s personal observations and reflections through her art. In the painting “Tu hi Tu”, there is a stillness and calm where the grid has broken and merged with its environment, completely creating an entirely new formation that is not bound by perspective or proportion. Here the colours are complementary and organic, without outlines and boundaries allowing the viewer to move freely between each square.
Tu hi Tu
Nazia builds each series within her practice using a highly personal and subjective visual language that has slowly evolved through the process of painting. Her collection of imagery and colour are constantly in conversation, creating an active process for gaining self-awareness.
If you want the Moon
The show will continue till 30th December at Tanzara Gallery in Islamabad.
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