An expression of stories and secrets carried within

Inspired by the works of Italian painter Sandro Botticelli, French painter Édouard Manet and Portuguese visual artist Paula Rego, Maria Khan’s work is an expression of stories and secrets that she carries within.

Maria’s latest exhibition of paintings titled ‘Vanity is Stronger than Love at Sixteen’ opened last week at the Canvas Gallery. Her latest series of artworks will remain on display until January 18.

The artist says she is always on the lookout for characters that inspire, “their features – large eyes, wide shoulders, strong necks – are the start of a story leading to a vision of these characters in a setting with flowers, berries and fruits – a garden of mystic adding to their lost gaze or the print of the fabric they are dressed in.”

She says that all these ingredients are glued together through charcoal and conte, dark background and big solid colours: “depictions of emotions of fantastically drawn, larger than life figures – scandalous characters. Placed in a dreamlike aura, the figures possess strong and large bodies, enhanced features – each telling their own story.”

A lecturer at the University College of Arts & Design at the University of the Punjab in Lahore, Maria sees the process of creating art as a journey of discovery, partly of the self. “These visuals are in our heads. All of us have locked them away far from the eyes of the public. Unlike us, these figures are comfortable in their skins and emotions regardless of the norms of the society they live in, and very much like us, they aspire for more: love, beauty, power and the stars.”

Maria Khan graduated from the University College of Arts & Design, majoring in painting, in July 2009. She then went on to pursue her MA (Hons) Visual Arts degree from the National College of Arts, graduating in January 2012.