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People of Pakistan got a glimpse of internationally-acclaimed Bahraini artist Thajba Mohamed Afdhal Najeeb’s colourful character and eclectic expressiveness during her recent showcase in Karachi.
Thajba, with Pakistani roots, featured her collection called 12 at the Full Circle gallery, Karachi, where she connected with art lovers and shared how her artist’s block broke her ... into a ‘beautiful mess’.
“It made me break out of my comfort zone and into this collection that gives respect, perhaps, to a more playful side of grief,” explained the 42-year-old Ibn Khuldoon National School (IKNS) IB art teacher and head of the visual arts department for the high school. “How unusual to pair those two emotions together!”
In October 2020, the Najeeb family had suffered a tragic loss when Thajba’s younger brother Ali passed away, leaving them and those that knew him in a state of sadness. Thajba developed a sketchbook aimed at honouring his memory, but wanted more. In January 2021, she stepped out of her comfort zone and started to pour her heart out onto the canvas, adding scribbles and words on paper saying ‘miss you Ali’ that she’d torn up and added to her pieces.
The art was therapeutic and a beautiful form of expression for her - and viewers were able to adore the works during her exhibition.
“I wanted viewers to connect with my private self - the one that contemplates life, the one that quiets down in the midst of chaos in my head,” said the mother-of-two, known for her vibrant art featured on canvases, abayas, perspex boxes and other materials.
“I wanted people to have a silent conversation with me and create a connection that is not bound by words, but open to visual narrative.”
Some gallery visitors chit chatted with Thajba about her creations while others admired the colourfully-creative artwork.
“Expo 12 is every inspiration, every voice, every emotion and every silent moment expressed on canvas,” she added. “This is my beautiful mess!”
The concept started with the documentation of time and movement - 12 months, 12 days, 12 minutes and 12 steps. “Time moved on, no matter how much I wanted to stop it,” she explained.
“My artist block broke me and what caused it is another story, but not getting myself to pick up that brush was torture.
“I didn’t want to think. I wanted to allow for release and then it happened! Having wanted to mock myself, I wanted to create art with absolutely no reason and intention - no conceptual understanding. But how is that possible when art is as organic as you are?
“So perhaps, this exhibition is a failure to the fact that I cannot create meaningless art.”
The collection, using markers, acrylic and gold enamel, is divided into two distinct styles. One is playful with hints of eternal revival and the other style is a romantic mockery of her life where it stands; ‘a visual stamp of the ironic inside versus the outside’.
“It started off as a playful juxtaposition of colours, lines, words and shapes, all encompassed into a chaotic composition playing on sensory overload,” said the co-founder of Artology Bahrain art studio in Saar. “Always planning my works meticulously with composition, layering, colour palettes, choices of right media - this collection does all of that - like the subconscious acting up in my work.
“It started as each piece representing a number of women and their alter egos decorated by flight, topped off with words of grief, anxiety and love - a yearning that I ache to have.
“You really cannot giggle at life’s roller coaster.”
She took inspiration from Bahraini writer and poet Y A Hashim as well as from Farid ud-Din Attar’s poem The Conference of the Birds. It is a Persian poetry book by the Sufi poet. In the book, the birds of the world gather to decide who is to be their sovereign, as they have none. The hoopoe, the wisest of them all, suggests that they should find the legendary Simurgh (which is a benevolent, mythical bird in Persian mythology and literature). The hoopoe leads the birds, each of whom represents a human fault, which prevents human kind from attaining enlightenment.
“There are two sides to this journey - taken over two years to create,” she added. “I see the journey that started with mockery of words of love and affirmations that turned into my romantic mockery of what I long for now. Each artwork is a piece of my spirit.”
The exhibition runs until February 17 in Pakistan and people can enjoy her artwork when it returns. For details, follow @tnajeeb on Instagram.
