Looking at this artist, I’m following up a suggestion by my tutor. I first looked at the recommended “Shifting Ground” series (from 2011) and liked it. I don’t include any pictures here because their download was blocked. Most paintings in this series consist of large watercolour blotches that are combined with very fine line drawings of buildings or other constructed elements. The buildings were small in size, compared to the watercolour blotches, and this creates a very interesting shift in perspective. I also like how this brings out the characteristic flowing effects of watercolours.

I find Naiza Khan’s work is interesting and unusual. In this series I like how watercolour as medium has been given room to speak for itself, the chance effects of pigments flowing in water onto the paper support. This is something I’d like to develop in my own work as well.

From skim reading, I understood that Naiza Khan’s biography of living in a politically unstable country has found its way into her artwork. On a second go, I went though the complete gallery of works and was quite impressed. The Ruskin Drawings (1987-90) from her time as an art student convey the imagery of being haunted – by nightmares or bad memories maybe. They are visually very appealing, with much energy and intense contrasts.

The series of works over her career are on varied topics, very sensual and in parts quite explicit. Not the kind of stuff I’d want to make but I appreciate that her themes follow ‘personal obsessions’, which is what I still have to discover for my own practice.

I also like the “emptyness” of some of the works. There’s open space and few marks that create larger entities. By contrast, my drawings and paintings tend to be “cluttered”, there’s too much squeezed into them. Another aspect I’d like to improve in my works.

Overall, quite an interesting excursion into the world of a modern artist. By personal preference, I’m more into traditional painting and would rather research classical artists. But looking at contemporary artists with non-traditional approaches is interesting nevertheless.

References

http://www.naizakhan.com/