Nargis Khalid - About Nargis

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Harmony with blue vases Myths and events in our life form the perfect subject matter for art. The subconscious mind is a treasure house storing an entire vocabulary of our visual and other sensory experiences. The process of creativity provides stimulation for the subconscious to emerge, unfolding the treasures that are a combination of simple and complex forms.

I know of the excitement that grips me when I work with the sights and sounds of nature and the ecstasy in expression achieving intensified brilliance. The tempest of colors thrill me.

Amidst a brilliance of colors, I reduce forms to their utmost simplicity and then embellish them with vibrant colors and energize them further with implied textures enjoying their subtle nuances.

I like to use lines that are elusive, lines that meander, disappear and reappear tantalizing the viewers imagination.

My present work is a tribute to the achievements of a humble village potter. Feminine form and Pottery that is either functional or meant for some decorative purpose dominate the composition. Their simple forms stand amidst a brilliance of colors derived from nature, village craft, and village festivals in order to provide a glamorous setting.

Thus my journey into a world of chromozone begins. These chromatic encounters are preoccupation with surface intrigues thrills me. Now I can withdraw and meditate in this realm of colors before me.

I celebrate a festival of colors, and as long as I am working with colors I celebrate life.

Sole of a Museum

Village bell II Nargis was born in India but was raised in Pakistan, where she received school and college education with a degree in B.A in English and history.

There were no art schools in Karachi then and her parents did not want to send her out of Karachi. During school years, she was the school artist always, and decorated covers for speeches, and cards and drawing caricature of teachers when lessons got boring. During her school years, she went to study art with a lady and then with a man who copied pictures accurately. Young as she was, Nargis felt there was some thing missing.

In 1967, the art council of Karachi introduced art lessons under a qualified artist. In 1970 the art council had a 4 year diploma course in fine arts, design and sculpture. Nargis by then had two children who had begun schooling, so she joined this diploma course and was very happy to meet a group of students dedicated to art.

During her 4 years at the Central Institute of Arts and Craft, she excelled in painting, sold many of her works, and was one of the first woman artist in a male dominated art world to receive a commission to paint two large murals at Adamjee insurance. Her thesis painting which was another mural was purchased by Molasses export in Pakistan. She participated in group shows, including national exhibition, and won first prize for painting in Mirpur Khas, in Pakistan.

In 1976 she along with her family migrated to Dubai. Dubai was still in early stages of development. Nargis along with an English water color artist Mary Jose was a founder member of a non profit organization, Dubai International Art Center with 20 members. Now there are over 2000 members of 38 different nationalities. Nargis has taught art to students there from 1994 to 2007.

Nargis taught drawing and painting to several students there and later went to teach at Jumaira American school for overseas American children. She completed a master’s degree in art education at Rhode Island school of design.

She has had several solo and group exhibitions in Dubai, U.S.A and Pakistan. She also won an award at an art competition in Laredo Texas. She is now teaching history of art at American College of Dubai. Nargis has a list of several prestigious commissions for private and corporate organizations in Dubai and abroad.

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.

The following are select previous works in water media and collage by Nargis Khalid.

Dreamscape II (24.25" x 20") Mixed Media		Enchanted Garden I (22" x 18") Mixed Media



		Still life with four vases (25.50" x 21.50 ") Mixed Media

Still life with one flower (20" x 16 ") Mixed Media		Suspended images (23" x 19 ") Mixed Media



Floral fantasy III (2' 4" x 4' 8") Mixed Media		Floral fantasy V (2' 4" x 4' 8") Mixed Media

Floral Fantasy II (2' 4" x 4' 8") Mixed Media		Floral Fantasy I (2' 4" x 4' 8") Mixed Media

Floral Fantasy (2' 4" x 4' 8") Mixed Media		Dreamscape III (24.50" x 21.75") Mixed Media

First Bloom (15" x 15.50") Mixed Media



Enchanted Garden II (21" x 16 ") Mixed Media		Woman in Green Veil (41" x 29.5") Acrylic

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.