Kashmiri artist portrays agony of women

Rifat Mohidin

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Tribune News Service

Srinagar, July 24

She paints, with both her hands simultaneously, women in colourful clothes wailing for their loved ones, showering petals on funerals or gathering for mournings. She has named the series “Women in war”.

It was in 2014 that Uzma Nawchoo, an artist from Srinagar, decided to put the pain of Kashmiri women on the canvas.

In April this year, Uzma started a series of her paintings called “Dari paeth” meaning on the window. In this, she has painted women in myriad expressions looking out of widows in Kashmir, images that are usually shown in media.

“When there is a funeral, stone-throwing or a protest, women see everything from windows. The aim is to show that this is what a normal day in Kashmir is,” says Uzma, who wants to showcase the situation of Kashmir to the outside world.

Uzma works as an art therapist and a teacher in Delhi but she likes to show problems and difficulties that conflict has brought to Kashmir, with the help of art.

To polish her skills, Uzma pursued her graduation from the JD Institute of Fashion Technology in apparel designing with emphasis on illustration, applied, visual and foundation art.

“I showcase my paintings through solo exhibitions. I recently did a series of 15 paintings in acrylics titled Women of War. This series depicts women of Kashmir who suffer mental and physical trauma due to war-like conditions,” she says. Uzma has inherited artistic genes from her great grandfather Abdul Gani Nawchoo, a calligrapher whose work adorned the walls of old Chrar-e-Sharief, and other known shrines in Kashmir.

Uzma’s paintings were exhibited at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in May where people were amazed at her creativity and storytelling. However, she feels it is difficult to make people in the national Capital understand the conflict.

“It is my way of telling what is happening in Kashmir. When people saw the paintings of women crying, wailing, they asked me a lot of questions. They asked me why I don’t paint the Dal Lake and the beauty of Kashmir, but this is the ground reality,” says Uzma.

“Some exhibitions refuse to showcase my work because they think it is a risk to talk about conflict but I am not doing it for money. I just do it so that the maximum number of people know about Kashmir.”

Uzma says her paintings are not meant for elite walls, they carry a message that needs to be propagated to masses.