‘Visions of the Heart’ on display at Hamail

LAHORE:Shahnaz Akhtar’s painting exhibition “Visions of the Heart” opened here at Hamail Art Gallery on Monday.

Shahnaz is a visual artist specialising in oil painting and graphic design with a longstanding career as an art teacher. Prof Dr Rahat Naveed Masud was the chief guest on the occasion. Shahnaz Akhtar was trained in graphic design at the Punjab University’s College of Art and Design, under the tutelage of renowned Pakistani artists, such as Anna Molka Ahmed and Zulqarnain Haider. These mentors inspired her to investigate the visible world through the distribution of light and colours that would enable a closer observation of reality, while unlocking a deeper appreciation of nature. Shahnaz graduated with an MFA from Punjab University with special honours and distinction, receiving a gold medal for her achievements in the fine arts.

She expanded her repertoire by taking courses at Columbia University in the New York City, where she took up oil paints as a medium that would define much of the work she later produced and exhibited upon her return to Lahore. Continuing her career as an instructor of fine arts, Shahnaz returned to teach at her alma mater, the Punjab University’s department of fine arts where she inspired the upcoming cohort of painters. Later, she continued her career by teaching GCSE O-Levels fine arts at a private school. Returning to New York City, Shahnaz took up portrait painting at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) under the instruction of John Parks, a renowned American painter. In 2016, Shahnaz received her MPhil from the Punjab University in Studio Practice for her thesis titled “Visual Interpretation of Mirza Ghalib’s Poetry” under the supervision of Dr Rahat Naveed Masud.

This solo exhibition covers a cross-section of paintings spanning Shahnaz’s career – from her earlier oil paint renderings of landscapes and figures to her more recent expressionist forays in acrylics and mixed media. Many of her works are held in private collections in Pakistan, UK, USA, and UAE.

Memorial meeting: A memorial meeting and Dua (prayer) for Dr Sara Suleri Goodyear, Professor of English and Postcolonial literatures at Yale University, and the founding Editor of Yale Journal of Criticism, was held at Kinnaird College for Women on Monday. According to a press release, presided by Vice-Principal Dr Nikhat Khan, the meeting was attended by Deans, departments Chairs, teaching staff of English and the ICPWE Director. The Dua was conducted by Ms Niazi of Religious Studies department. Renowned internationally, Sara Suleri was Kinnaird alumna in 1974, taught by the renowned literary icon Shaista Sonnu Sirajuddin who is still a Visiting Professor at Kinnaird. Suleri did her MA from Punjab University in 1976, where she was under the tutelage of another literary luminary, Professor Navid Shahzad, a Kinnaird alumna again. Suleri’s prominent works include Meatless Days (1989), The Rhetoric of English India (1992), Boys will be Boys (2003), Ghalib: Epistemologies of Elegance (2009), co-authored with Azra Raza, and above all her very iconic essay: “Woman Skin Deep: Feminism and the Postcolonial Condition.” Daughter of ZA Suleri, the Pakistan Times Editor, and Welsh English teacher at Punjab University, Mair Jones, Suleri will remain, what another Kinnaird alumna and Distinguished Professor of English at Montclair State University, Dr Fawzia Afzal-Khan states: “as inspirational a figure as the woman she once portrayed on stage: courageous, and graceful, in the face of life’s manifold challenges.”