Mehreen Hasan, a Qatar-based Pakistani painter, uses her work to face her fears, writes Umer Nangiana
It is not just her observation that she brings to the canvas. Her paintings are a visual expression of her battle with her fears. Mehreen Hasan, a Qatar-based Pakistani artist, pictures and paints a person’s everyday struggle to survive in hostile circumstances.
In order to spread her message and to be understood by a multi-cultural audience, Mehreen has taken her work beyond borders. Besides her home country Pakistan and Qatar, where she lives, she has exhibited her paintings in Egypt and the United Kingdom (UK). She is currently working on her upcoming exhibition to be held in London in August this year.
“My visuals are not just my study of facial anatomy or my skill to present resemblance in portraiture but it is my way to disconnect from the environment, to challenge the obstacles, to face my fears and to hold it all within,” Mehreen told Community recently in a talk. “This self-inflicted isolation is nourishing as it reconnects me to my true self,” she added.
Mehreen is a UK-trained visual artist currently based in Doha. Last year, she participated in two group shows in London. Her work was displayed at Espacio Gallery, a venue in the heart of London’s East End founded in 2012 by a group of selected multicultural artists working across all contemporary visual arts media and techniques.
The exhibition titled Kaleidoscope featured paintings by thirteen artists of different nationalities who were then “making their presence felt in the East London art scene.” Mehreen was one of them. She is also a member of the Espacio Gallery.
According to the gallery, Kaleidoscope was a “showcase for [the artists to] reveal their individual and divergent concerns; it enables a dialogue between concepts, a display of informed 2D and 3D media and celebrates a diversity of colour and form.”
Having a master in Fine Arts from Pakistan, Mehreen has also received training in Contemporary Painting Techniques from University of Arts, London, UK (Chelsea College of Arts) and in Life Drawing from Bettresea Art Centre, London in 2012. She has also taken classes in Life drawing at Bethnal Green, London.
She has been visible on art scene in Pakistan since 1991, when she participated in group exhibitions at a very young age. She has been a member of Artists’ Association Lahore. Her first solo exhibition was held in Pearl Continental Hotel Lahore in 1993.
Mehreen continued to inspire and pursued her passion for painting even after moving to Qatar on her husband’s sponsorship. Her work was exhibited at Al Wakrah Stadium and Al Khor Community Centre in 2011. In the following year, her paintings were displayed in an exhibition titled “Underwater Artists” at Dahab, Egypt.
“Although bound by [seemingly] unlimited limitations, some imposed, and some self-imposed, confined by doctrines, my creativity is a free spirit. When I paint, I allow my creativity to flow freely, I paint from soul,” said Mehreen, explaining her style.
She will visit London in August this year to attend the inauguration ceremony of her painting exhibition. Her latest work explores what lies within her creative journey. It displays traditional self-portraiture presented not merely for self-representation, but focuses on an objective reality. “Principal aim [of the work] being my spirit of research concerning human behaviour, a certain state of mind, man’s response and relationship between his environment, life experiences both pleasant and unpleasant,” she added.
Mehreen says her art signifies a person’s daily struggle to survive in a hostile atmosphere where one is faced with challenges like racism, stalking, gender biases, inequalities, prejudices and misconceptions.
“My art revolves around the transitions and the transformations, from one stage of life to another, personal and artistic, physical and spiritual, and even the inevitable.”
She added that amidst all these pressures, art provides a medium to express concerns and to cater to the implications. It is a source to channel the surrounding negativity, rationalise her existence and it fortifies the struggle to survive. “It inculcates resilience, provides strength to sustain it all,” she said.
Besides adjudicating many arts competitions, Mehreen has been teaching visual arts and drawing at multiple institutions in Pakistan and Qatar.