Quiet sermon of flowers

Hailing from the art ‘Gharana’ Mona’s brush speaks the language of silence

Mona Naqsh is all set to launch another solo painting exhibition, ‘Ode to my father Jamil Naqsh’ on 11th October 2022, at Koel Gallery. All her 50 paintings in the exhibition speak the language of flowers. Each painting creates a symphony of colour and natural blooms. In a beautiful ode to her father, Mona’s work embodies a certain classic, traditional art that is timeless.

Mona opened her first solo show with a collection of artworks depicting the subtlety of flowers as a subject at the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) Atrium in March 2012. The exhibition entitled ‘When Flowers Talk’, ran for five days, coinciding with Art Dubai. It featured an array of 30 new paintings which showcased Mona’s use of brush, pencil, pen and ink on her to create floral artworks in classical settings. This will be Mona’s solo exhibition probably after a gap of two years. So the Bol News sat down with Mona to rediscover her.

Mona was born to a legendary painter Jamil Naqsh and brought up in a home where artists like Ahmed Pervaiz, Bashir Mirza, Masood Kohari, Shahid Sajjad, Zahoor ul Akhlaq and Ali Imama were frequent visitors. She grew up in the midst of art and ideas listening to the captivating sound of Vilayat Khan’s Sitar, Bismillah Khan’s Shehnai and Roshanara Begum’s Thumri. In short, art in every form and format was a way of life for her.

Recollecting her childhood memories, she said her father was a keen observer of nature, plants and pets which became an essential part of her house. As such, nature has always been important to her and she is convinced that paying homage to nature is the path of art she must take. Thus Mona started expressing her aesthetic sensitivity by using flowers as her subject.

Narrating a story of her father’s association with nature and pets, she said, “My father, with all the brightness in his eyes, once told me that one of the female pigeons visited him daily with her family to meet him in his studio. Some of his pigeons even listened to his instructions like human kids. Like Paul Cezanne, a French artist, my father often came out to speak to his banyan tree. Standing silently, holding its branch and caressing the leaves.”

Talking about the early days she said, “In the formative years of my career when we were in the same space, he would, without looking at my work, tell me, ‘Phool aur banao’. He would expect me to intuitively understand and identify the area he wanted me to address. If I failed to understand immediately, he would say, ‘Place your hand where I want you to focus.”

Discussing her career process as a painter she said her father’s teachings, his painterly values and the influence of uncompromising commitment to intellectual values developed in her a sense of discipline so important for any creative person. He used to say, ‘Sleep in your studio, eat in your studio, think in your studio and dream in your studio’, she added.

Remembering her father who died in 2019 she said, “When he moved to London in 2003, my only connection with him was my paintings. I used to send images of my work and waited anxiously for his remarks. Somehow he always pointed out the very painting I had doubts about by marking ‘give this painting a look again’.”

Mona Naqsh took her formal training from her father Jamil Naqsh. Talking about her early learning period she said, “Apart from teaching the skill he consciously taught me the illusive respect of my profession and defined its boundaries of acceptance and rejection. As in music, there are ‘Gharanas’, our house was also one of the Gharana of art where we nurtured, embellished and perfected the aesthetic of each stroke that we struck.”

While talking about respect for masters like Leonardo Da Vinci, Picasso and Rembrandt, she said, “For me, their work, their book and anything about them is so sacred that whenever I go through their works I placed that book on Rehal (an X-shaped, foldable book rest or lectern used for placing holy books during recitation) and sit crossed-legged on the floor.”

Mona gradually started absorbing the aesthetic quietly, trying her hand at drawing and painting. Discussing her first landing into the field of art, she said when her father noticed her interest, he placed a bunch of bougainvillea flowers in a vase and asked to paint with instructions to observe each form carefully while concentrating on limes and colours. With the passage of time, she developed her own aesthetic language and started making her presence felt in the world of art.

Talking about her lockdown days during the pandemic, she said, “During those days, my only outdoor visit was to the roof of my house where I watched the sunrise or sunset, an intense experience which along with my reading of ‘The Secret Wisdom of Nature’ by Peter Wholleben, brought new elements into my art.”

His book brought significant change to her art. “I began to incorporate the images in the clouds with birds and fish to celebrate the interconnectedness of plants with the rest of nature. The images started fusing one upon the other, playing upon the visible and invisible in an almost gothic image. The line and texture of my paintings started carrying the emotion of each image delicately.” she remarked.

Though she does not follow a 9 to 5 schedule, she sometimes works even more than eight hours. She is an early riser and prefers to work in the quietness of early morning and late night. She believes in the significance of silent moments in creative works. “Listen to the silence, it has a language. Create a dialogue with that silence because it mirrors the truth.” She remarks.

The painter of flowers in her concluding remarks said, “It was 1986 that I signed my first still life of Bougainvillea flowers. A subject was chosen for me – a subject which is a whole school of drawing and education – a subject that teaches the lesson itself. This silent sermon of flowers and my creative urge showed the signs of inner growth as an artist.”