Nargis Khalid - An Expressionist Artist

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The varied hues of myths and events in our lives absorbed consciously or unconsciously are subject matter of art. Growing up in India and Pakistan, amidst a sensorial cauldron of vivid hues one is overwhelmed by the colors of nature. Observering colors of sunset, rituals, crafts have always urged me to be celebrating a festival of colors on my canvas, where free use of colors help me to discover unusual surface techniques. Accompanied by simple objects from our everyday life, and set against a background of delicate textures there is a narrative that tantalizes the viewers imagination.

Emphasis is on the elusive quality of most basic element of art-line. Lines that meander, disappear, and emerge with great vitality. There are no preliminary sketches, or planning, only yielding to a deep force from within that takes me into a very meditative state, and a tranquility I have never experienced before. I simply wait for the unconscious mind to unlock its barriers and allow a glimpse into a realm never explored before.

A US citizen now, Nargis was born in Bombay, but received her school and college education in Karachi, Pakistan. She completed her Bachelor of Arts in Literature and History from Karachi University, since Fine Art education was not yet institutionalized. She earned excellent grades in arts at school, and continued painting on her own in her spare time.

When the Central Institute of Arts and Crafts opened in 1970, Nargis joined and completed her four year diploma in Fine Arts. She was married by then and had two children. Equally at ease with both oil and water co lour she chose oil as her medium of expression. Recently, she has moved from oil to water colours and mixed media.

In 1972, she received a commission to paint two murals for Adamjee Insurance, a leading company in Pakistan. Her third mural was purchased by Molasses Export in Karachi. In 1973 she received first prize in a painting competition held in Mirpurkhas and was subsequently represented in the National Exhibition of Pakistani artists.

She moved to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates in 1976 with her family. Nargis was one of the 20 founder members of the Dubai Arts Society. The Society currently has grown to over 900 members. Nargis remains an active member, teaching art and assisting in many areas for the development of this organization. While in Dubai, she continued her work for six more years as an art instructor at Jumeirah American School.

In 1986, Nargis obtained her Masters degree from Rhode Island School of Design and moved to the United States the following year. She and her husband started a business the same year. In 1992, she decided to move back to Dubai, when her husband was offered a position in a leading Insurance Company.

At present she is teaching art to a large group of international students at the Dubai International Arts Center and is a faculty member for American College of Dubai. Nargis has been active in large numbers of solo and group exhibitions. Her paintings have been purchased by both corporations and private collectors.

An appreciation by Ahmed Parvez
October 28, 1975, Karachi

This remarkable exhibition of 30 odd oil paintings by Mrs. Nargis Khalid draws our attention to the fact that she is note quite embracing the stereotypes of her young contemporaries who insist upon illustrating themselves as desperate painters fast adopting the abstract style of painting and exhibiting too early!

Most of have witnessed in the past Nargis proceeding slowly and thought-fully not only from provincial to sophisticate but also pausing and taking through till she had grown to the full, and she now seems to swim at her ease. Her present work is less hampered by any established style of other artists as she liberates her female forms abundantly, touching a level of intuition rarely attained in her early work. She uses local figures as her point of departure, in an impressive but stark simplified way against receding and well-proportioned backgrounds of many textual possibilities. The complex relationship between head and body, circular and squarish forms caught by a bold use of rigid line to tie her composition together are note worthy.

It is hoped that Mrs. Nargis Khalid will continue to be promising and enthusiastic, and she may as well change into a professional mature artist who should be watched and encouraged.

Surface Intrigue by Nargis Khalid
Friday Magazine, Khaleej Times

Her works are an exploration of textures, colour and line. Hauntingly moody figures emerge. Her collection comprises 18 large and medium oils on canvas and 18 brilliant monoprints.

Her art helps her create an escapist world wherein she takes refuge from all the painful, tragic things that she has experienced directly or indirectly. Interestingly, her experiences, distilled through the medium of her personality, find expression in delicate leaf-like structures which become the leit motif for all her paintings.

The sensitivity of her personality thus gets expressed both in the soft lines and the intermixing of delicate hues. “I cannot react to harshness with harshness,” she says. “I just withdraw into this world that I have created with my colours.”

Born in India, raised in Pakistan and now an American citizen, Nargis’ paintings express a deep nostalgia for the colours of her childhood.

Allana opens exhibition of Nargis Khalid’s paintings
Dawn, Karachi

The display of the oils is laudable for its unity of theme and consistency of style. The 30 paintings are portraits of women. They are marked for their bold use of colours.

Semi-abstract in their form, the canvas shows doe-eyed pensive women, -- with oblong faces and a touch of oriental jewellery. The faces go well with the gazelle-like limbs, and the full bosoms – which are accentuated by their colour and form.

Pulsating with a richness of colour and texture, the works are eastern in theme, although the impact of western modernity is obvious in the cubistic overtures.

‘Palette power’ evident in city-based artist’s works
Tabloid, Gulf News

The idealism, and that joie de vivre is dented, but still largely intact. And it remains a key element when she picks up the pots and paints.
Her works are “aesthetic expressions of feeling, an arrangement of shapes, like music or dance, where the drawing is minimal, the theme simply an excuse to play wit…”

In fact, the exhibition’s title ‘Surface Intrigue’ is very apt. Each painting is a mystery, with a hidden message, the form so amorphous that you can barely trace the outlines of the bouquet of flowers, or the man sleeping on the floor.

Nargis is strongly rooted in the sights, sounds and fragrances of her heritage, both natural and cultural, finding great delight through artistic expression in the language of this sensorial retrospective.