A Writer
Ink, Gouache on Wasli
25x35 cm
Creative Women Series
This series centres women at the threshold of their own becoming. It captures moments when creative impulse surfaces quietly yet insistently, when attention turns inward rather than outward toward expectation or duty. The acts are ordinary, singing, knitting, drawing, reading, yet they become gestures of autonomy. Presence itself becomes a form of resistance.
Rendered on wasli, the work consciously engages with the historical language of miniature painting while unsettling its hierarchies. For centuries women were framed as decorative subjects, muses, or symbols. In many South Asian visual histories they were idealised, anonymised, or erased. Here they occupy space without performance. They are not arranged for display. They are absorbed in their own interior worlds.
Through intimate observation of friends and family, the series bridges lived experience with art history. It reclaims representation not through spectacle, but through attention. The paintings propose a subtle shift: from woman as object of vision to woman as agent of her own gaze.
Ink, Gouache on Wasli
25x35 cm
Creative Women Series
This series centres women at the threshold of their own becoming. It captures moments when creative impulse surfaces quietly yet insistently, when attention turns inward rather than outward toward expectation or duty. The acts are ordinary, singing, knitting, drawing, reading, yet they become gestures of autonomy. Presence itself becomes a form of resistance.
Rendered on wasli, the work consciously engages with the historical language of miniature painting while unsettling its hierarchies. For centuries women were framed as decorative subjects, muses, or symbols. In many South Asian visual histories they were idealised, anonymised, or erased. Here they occupy space without performance. They are not arranged for display. They are absorbed in their own interior worlds.
Through intimate observation of friends and family, the series bridges lived experience with art history. It reclaims representation not through spectacle, but through attention. The paintings propose a subtle shift: from woman as object of vision to woman as agent of her own gaze.
A Reader
Gouache on Wasli
25x35 cm
This is one of the paintings from my ‘Creative Women’ series. The piece depicts a woman unperturbed by the conventions of tidying her wardrobe and making herself presentable for (perhaps) an unseen other. Instead she freely indulges in the act of reading and thinking.
Here, Persian miniature painting has inspired the composition. The floor is seen from a high viewpoint making the tiles frontal with an intricate geometric pattern. The figure however is rendered realistically like a Mughal painting.
Gouache on Wasli
25x35 cm
This is one of the paintings from my ‘Creative Women’ series. The piece depicts a woman unperturbed by the conventions of tidying her wardrobe and making herself presentable for (perhaps) an unseen other. Instead she freely indulges in the act of reading and thinking.
Here, Persian miniature painting has inspired the composition. The floor is seen from a high viewpoint making the tiles frontal with an intricate geometric pattern. The figure however is rendered realistically like a Mughal painting.
A Lady is Yearning for her Lover
Gouache on Wasli
25x35 cm
Gouache on Wasli
25x35 cm
A Dancer
Gouache on Wasli
25x35 cm
In this painting a woman wants to dance and dance only for herself. She practices alone while those that would mock her are either watching TV, sleeping or languishing in the comfort of their own inertia.
Gouache on Wasli
25x35 cm
In this painting a woman wants to dance and dance only for herself. She practices alone while those that would mock her are either watching TV, sleeping or languishing in the comfort of their own inertia.
Two ladies on the Terrace
Gouache on Wasli
25x35 cm
This is another painting from the ‘Creative Women’ series. Here two female friends share an intimate space safely above a noisy, cluttered Lahori street. In this, their world, an artist is making a portrait of her friend who agrees to sit patiently. I have tried to create a sense of complicity between two women who knowingly partake in an age-old activity on their own terms.
Here I think the multi-viewpoint perspective helps to create a sense of claustrophobia in the sultry high summer evening.
Gouache on Wasli
25x35 cm
This is another painting from the ‘Creative Women’ series. Here two female friends share an intimate space safely above a noisy, cluttered Lahori street. In this, their world, an artist is making a portrait of her friend who agrees to sit patiently. I have tried to create a sense of complicity between two women who knowingly partake in an age-old activity on their own terms.
Here I think the multi-viewpoint perspective helps to create a sense of claustrophobia in the sultry high summer evening.