Even with over a decade of prolific exploration in both medium and content behind her, the spirit of Wardha Shabbir’s contemporary art practice remains embedded in the aesthetics and ethos of miniature painting and her enduring inquiry into the nature of what it means to encounter and immerse oneself in a sensory experience. Her visual research has been inspired by the identity and history of her city, Lahore. The flora and fauna she encountered in her home, city and its historical gardens have all continued to play a decisive role in informing and refining her visual research. In a recent talk, on her solo show in 2023 titled ‘If a Tree Could Wander’, ¹ Shabbir was succinct as she stated rather aptly that her “influences have not changed, they have evolved.” ² This is a fairly insightful assessment of the artist’s practice summed up in her own words. When she started her artistic journey Shabbir’s initial focus it seems, was fueled by a burning desire to reimagine and rewrite the tenets of experiencing space and time in miniature painting as it is encountered on a two-dimensional surface. Over the years Shabbir sought to hone and then challenge this somewhat canonical understanding and praxis of miniature painting that was imparted to her during her BFA at NCA, Lahore. Her contemporary practice has attempted to, literally and metaphorically, “break” the confines of the way miniature painting is framed, seen and interpreted by transposing and reorienting its components in new spaces, mediums, arrangements and modes of expression. Even in the nascent years of her career as an emerging artist, Shabbir had already begun this process by deconstructing the various elements of Indian miniature painting and working in video, sound, sculpture and installation. Whether it was her path-breaking immersive, interactive environment created in the FLACC Artists’ Residency in Belgium in 2013 or her Rohtas 2 Show in 2012 that featured a room full of fake grass turf with taxidermized crows feasting on actual putrefying meat in an Alice in Wonderland-esque environment (Fig. 1), Shabbir’s  vocabulary exhibits a knack for reveling in, and  acknowledging the various realms of imagination as spaces that can be fluid in their realization: they  can be fluid, fleeting or physical, real, surreal, tactile and/or metaphorical.

Shabbir continued to showcase her painterly skills, this time with an emphasis on challenging the tenets of display, curation and orientation within a gallery space; the walls of the gallery were transformed into her vast canvas. ‘Of Trees and Other Beings’, exhibited at Rohtas in 2016, features an array of hybrid animals and foliage inspired by representations of the fantastical which often populated myths and stories in Indian miniature. In some paintings, minute elements, such as dragonflies, can be seen billowing and flowing out of the confines of the painting and spilling onto the walls of the gallery (Fig. 2); painted in colors that complement the mood of the works. Other works, such as paintings of sizeable crows, appear to be in dialogue with diptychs of meandering, angular paths (Fig. 3).

Subtle in its approach but bold in its presentation, Shabbir challenges the defined limits of Indian miniature painting which are mostly typified by fixed formats and styles that are framed by thin bands of colored and decorated borders. The artist ups the ante, so to speak and challenges this claim by placing the works at different levels in the gallery so that the viewer becomes an active spectator who is “engaged” with the works at various vantage points. Elaborating on her 2016 solo show titled ‘Of Trees and Other Beings’ Shabbir discusses space and paths as her main inspiration for this body of works avowing that “taking labyrinth as a source of inspiration, which can be defined as a place in which we lose ourselves in order to find ourselves, is intriguing”. ³

This fascination with maps and labyrinths had already emerged early in 2016 after Shabbir’s participation in The Summer Intensive Program Exhibition at Slade School of Fine Arts in London. The artist explained her experience of navigating around the city as bewildering, given that she was completely reliant on the visually droning and maze-like routes on Google Maps for directions. It did not help that the light, as well as flora and fauna, were completely different in a new urban landscape. In one of her ruminations on color and light, Shabbir explained how she associated the yellow color and an exuberant palette with Lahore in contrast to the pale blue tint of London. ⁴ These observations about modern life, the environment, garden histories and the taming of landscape and people begin to manifest themselves in many of Shabbir’s later compositions. These works featured flat planes of angular and rectangular paths that are broken down into parts as if fragmented and dispersed. The visual experience of looking at these “designed” spaces is stimulated and contrasted by the presence of a riotous arrangement of colored plants, trees and flowers inspired by Indian miniature painting all “contained” within these paths. This cornucopia of flora and fauna is offset against flat areas of uninterrupted, saturated colour. (Fig. 4)

With their non-naturalistic colors, none of the vegetation seem to reference the real world, in fact in our conversation Shabbir mentions “sculpted trees” which is a reference to her three-dimensional models in miniature, one of the many methods she uses to create compositions in her studio. Shabbir’s practice emerges out of multiple permutations and interpretations of spaces and motifs and this is what defines, as Salima Hashmi describes it as “the open-endedness of her work.” ⁵

Shabbir’s artistic production in 2018 and 2019 demonstrates characteristics that help contextualize her more recent bodies of work. Of particular interest are her artworks produced for the 2018 Jameel Prize 5 exhibited at the V&A. These carry two distinct but interwoven strands that define the overall tenor of the works. Firstly, all traces of fantastical and figurative representation are relinquished in favor of minimalism and abstraction. The tension between confinement and freedom, order and chaos, diversity and culture are encapsulated within these forms. The second strand of works considers the more metaphysical aspect of spatiality; Shabbir deconstructs and strips compositions down to basic shapes, or pairs of shapes, and their various permutations which are covered with foliage. Shabbir refers to this interpretation as “organic geometry”.⁶ The Siraat or path which had been an enduring motif of her artistic practice now emerges as a mature and open-ended motif that becomes the artist’s primary interest for this particular body of work. The use of the painted dot which had been a mainstay in many of her works is transformed into a meaningful metaphor that connotes both unity and multiplicity. The compositions appear to be static but exist in an intermediary space where they seem to be in flux. Well-trimmed hedges laden with tiny leaves that appear to be resplendent in their monotony are caught in a cycle of birth and degeneration as they shed ever so gradually, dot by dot.  Visually, Shabbir only chooses to keep what is essential to her concept. Shabbir’s 2019 shows at Canvas, ‘The Space Within’ and ‘In a Free State’ at Grosvenor Gallery both draw parallels with and interpret maps as states of mind. Permutations of paths and even lines of foliage such as in ‘A Basic Instinct’ (Fig. 5) waver, transform, splinter, converge or explode while dot-like formations disperse across panels as if hundreds of birds have scattered in a strange, amorphous synchronicity.

With numerous accolades, participation in various biennales and a well-deserved Jameel Prize nomination behind her, Shabbir’s practice has continued to transform. While she has continued to strip some of her visual vocabulary in order to pare it down, she has also exhibited a maturity in making connections within her research: some of the recurring elements have reconsolidated their presence while new autobiographical metaphors associated with the feminine have emerged in Wardha Shabbir’s latest solo show at Grosvenor Gallery titled ‘The Water You Seek’, which was held in 2022.

Lines, maps and geometry continue to inform this body of work, as does mood and sensory experience albeit with a greater awareness of the conceptual and theoretical underpinnings of Pahari School/Basohli and Ragamala paintings. This is evident through her use of red borders— a defining characteristic of many Basohli paintings— in compositions such as ‘Building my Own Sanctuary’ and the diptych titled ‘An Approximate Translation of Self’.

Arguably Shabbir had, in a sense so far been drawing enthusiastically from this visual repertoire in a bid to maximize her exploration and arrive at a synthesis that could encapsulate the essence of a tradition but with a contemporary understanding of its aesthetics.  With this show though, Shabbir may have come full circle. She delves deeper and longer with an assured confidence of an experienced practitioner who has found her place and with a nuanced consciousness of the versatility and sophistication of this idiom, its rich history and most importantly its association with the identity and representation of females in this genre.

Basohli is a 17th century style of miniature painting that represents the decorative painting style which was prevalent in the hill states of India. Its variations existed in Kangra, Guler, Mankot, Jasrota, Chamba, Nurpur, Bilaspur, Kulu and Mandi, each informed by and developing into local forms of Basohli.⁷ Some of the narrative themes of many of these paintings often involved natural settings which were sometimes set against dramatic elements of weather and topophilia that would suffuse the “mood” of the painting. The heroines or nayikas in these paintings would use these tropes as a means to relay their feelings.  Rain, cloudy skies, thunder or a quiet summer night illuminated by a full moon, the many vagaries in the temporal space of miniature painting witnessed through weather were meant to match the equally varied and passionate avatars of the nayikas who were shown running, dancing sighing or pining for their lover. These elements are visible in Rasamanjari painting, a form of Basohli painting that impacted schools such as Kangra. Often texts such as the Rasikapriya⁸, an epic of love featuring myriad emotions and passions would inspire artists to illustrate such settings. In Ragamala paintings the nayikas and the various elements in the setting would become metonyms for the various parts of a raag.

Much like Basohli painting, some of Shabbir’s dense, verdant and multi-hued arrangements of trees and vegetation, as in the diptych titled ‘An Approximate Translation of Self’ (Fig. 6a and 6b) are also redolent of a “mood” that allows the viewer to segue into experiencing the capriciousness of weather. Shabbir mentions that the view from her window during the isolation period of COVID-19 became the “frame” through which she noted details in geography, weather and mood. ⁹ The rectangular frames seem to mimic this vantage point. Perhaps that is how little details become worth observing in a non-naturalistic setting when waves and streaks of raindrops are shown moving sonorously with the wind and flowing diagonally across the vegetation as swirling clouds dominate and offset the composition with their peculiar curls and tendrils. The red “border” or frames of the paintings derives from Basohli paintings that were often painted in this color. The title is self-referential and Shabbir’s landscape thus becomes a cognitive interpretation that is mixed with her own emotional turmoil and personal angst.

A more three-dimensional and modular representation of another mood is conveyed through ‘A Land Mass’ (Fig. 7) which resembles a topographic miniature model of foliage but the background is suffused in a saturated lapis-lazuli blue contrasted by a tempestuous mood.  A stormy, diaphanous grey thunder cloud chooses to rain down on a flat segment of the cross section while the remaining cubic section remains untouched. This tension between reason and emotion plays out spatially as well because of the choice of color. An intense and unfathomable backdrop of an ebullient blue is reigned in by the geometric scaling of the composition that is used to “contain” the effect of weather. Shabbir’s unique compositions, such as ‘A Land Mass’, are often the result of hours spent in her studio sketching, making three-dimensional models and observing their photographs in a two -dimensional format. She situates her practice within this everchanging and eclectic interplay between spatial planes, vantage points and mediums. Perhaps that is why there is consistency in one of the defining characteristics of her work: volume and three-dimensionality are vying with the stiff, flatness of the foliage even as the entire universe constructed by Shabbir is dissipating into oblivion, dot by dot.

‘Building My Own Sanctuary’ (Fig. 8) features a landscape encased within a vermillion red frame but, in a surprise move characteristic of Shabbir’s style, she attempts to challenge its “flatness” on the wall; manipulating and contrasting it through angular distortion. This fragment of one of Shabbir’s Siraat (paths) provokes questions about its existence: shall we interpret this work as a diptych or a puzzling deconstruction of a typical two-page manuscript format intended for a personal and intimate reading?

There are two monochromatic works in this exhibition that stand out in this regard. Titled ‘Kaali Aag (Fig.9), both feature the same ambiguous formation; an amorphous shape filled with texture that radiates tendrils on an enormous picture plane. For Shabbir the introduction of this motif called ‘Kaali Aag’ becomes emblematic of an “entity that is the birth of something”, she also reiterates that perhaps it may even be a representation of her personal self that has undergone a transformation. ¹⁰

Shabbir elaborates in detail on the research and development of this motif and interestingly she states that she first used satellite images of volcanoes as a reference. Shabbir is earnest as she describes it “…as  an entity of power, it is an image of authority….timeless… the phrase Kaali Aag (Black Fire) refers to body and it also refer to fire and transformation because you know, when something burns  it becomes black but it is not necessarily dead. When it sheds and dissipates it also signals rebirth, transformation. It is nurtured but it is not ready.” ¹¹

If the motif of ‘Kaali Aag’ is still in its embryonic or transitory phase then Shabbir adds another layer (literally and metaphorically, it seems) of meaning to this motif when she explains that hundreds of layers of brush strokes have been used to build this nebulous space so that it resembles hundreds of human hairs all densely contained within the miniscule space. An emphasis on the feminine and bodily aspect of this work affirms Shabbir’s desire to acknowledge her gender as being a crucial component of this recent body of work.

Referring to another pivotal painting executed in color, ‘The Water You Want’ (Fig. 10) which features the same motif reflecting the sky in a sea of green blades of grass, Shabbir explains that when she painted the void in cerulean hues, she felt that this fire is cold but its connotation transforms in each work. Even the use of a field of grass as a motif in the painting with its blades and patches undulating rhythmically in the wind derives from earlier works executed in video or perhaps, she argues it may even harken back to her earliest work in 2012 where Shabbir admits that perhaps she was always unconsciously drawn to its female energy. Referring to The Water You Want, Shabbir goes so far as to interpret the healing and transformative energy of the lush green field as a reactionary response to the distressing incident of a woman being raped on the Lahore-Sialkot Motorway in 2020. ¹²

The admission of, and allusions to, nature, energy and gender in Shabbir’s latest body of work delineate a subtle change in Shabbir’s trajectory and concerns as an artist. How she embraces and develops these strategies in future bodies of work is something worth waiting for.

The Solo Show by Wardha Shabbir titled ‘The Water You Seek’ opened on October 5^th 2022 at Grosvenor Gallery, London and remained on display till October 18^th 2022.

All images courtesy of Wardha Shabbir