If there is one constant in the natural world, it is its inherent unpredictability.

In a matter of minutes, our surroundings can be transformed by sudden change. A clear blue sky can turn an ominous grey and no two sunsets hold quite the same spectrum of hues in their brief, theatrical passage from day into night. To grasp these subtle occurrences requires a heightened level of sensitivity, an attentiveness to the world that allows one to recognise the miraculous in the seemingly ordinary.

A person sensitive enough to perceive these fleeting wonders is almost incapable of keeping the feelings they evoke contained. It is this heightened sensitivity to the fleeting and the ordinary that lies at the heart of Siddiqua Bilgrami’s artistic creations. For Bilgrami, movement is intrinsic to life, and space is what makes movement possible, so nature and space become both her tools and her subjects. According to her, “Colour reflects feeling, while line reflects thought. They are ways of putting passing thoughts and feelings into my work over the years.”

That same sense of movement has carried through Bilgrami’s own life. Born into a Deccani family, she studied at the Government College of Arts and Architecture in Hyderabad Deccan before travelling to Rome on an Italian government scholarship. There, she studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma, trained in ceramics at Centro CALAL and worked in the studio of the Italian artist Guido La Regina, after being introduced to him by the art historian Lionello Venturi.

Her first solo exhibition in Rome in 1960 was followed by shows across Italy and India, which also featured a visit by M.F. Husain, who signed the guest book. She moved to Karachi in 1964, continuing her career here through painting, teaching,........

© Dawn (Magazines)