Young Artist Spotlight: Nadia Waheed

Born in Saudi Arabia to Pakistani parents, Nadia Waheed moved countries regularly growing up. Her one constant was her sketchbook, which spawned a practice that embraces everything from chaos theory to the Islamic occult.

Luminous blues and greens are juxtaposed with rich, earthy tones in Nadia Waheed's canvases, which illuminate the space between reality and imagination, earthly and ethereal.

Often interpreted as visual diaries, the artist's figurative paintings draw from themes of womanhood, cultural identity, spiritual and physical expansion, and the experience of growing up as a woman born in Saudi Arabia to Pakistani parents.

Waheed shares her approach to interweaving her artistic practice with her personal experience and talks us through her process and the themes arising from her current body of work.

You were born in Saudi Arabia to Pakistani parents and moved from one country to another every three years. Could you tell us about your upbringing and its influence on your practice?

Amid so much perpetual change, my sketchbook was one of the few consistencies I had. It was my home and place of belonging through endless iterations of being the 'new kid'.

My painting practice as an adult is not so far removed from what it was like when I was younger. My studio is the safest conceivable space it can be and the most confronting. It holds up a mirror to see what's inside; anguish is amplified, happiness is euphoric, and frustration mutates into vitriol.

The studio, like my sketchbook, does not judge or condemn. It absorbs all of it. It doesn't keep score or hold grudges—it accepts me as I am and allows me the room to be, change, and grow.

In adulthood, it has become a temple for my painting and devotional work; it is how I pray and connect to god. I walk through the doors and I am inside the deepest part of myself, the safest place I have—as my sketchbook had been when I was moving around growing up.

Some of your paintings have a luminous and almost translucent quality to them. Could you tell us about the different processes you use?

The foundation of my studio practice is in drawing, I didn't start painting properly until I was 24.

I was always afraid of paint—the limitlessness of it and all the options to manipulate shape, form, colour, light, and dimensional space. I found it overwhelming, and sometimes still do. Light is my ultimate weakness. Having been a child with an obsessive sketchbook habit, drawing felt simple to me. You have one line and make things with that one line, forever and ever, page after page.

When I started painting I opted to not 'paint'. I relied heavily on my drawing practice to carry the weight of my shortcomings as a painter. I've made hundreds of paintings now, and I'm beginning to lean into all that paint can do.

Nowadays, I begin with a rough drawing and make sure it's aligned the way I want it to be on the canvas, then I choppily block it all in and start fleshing it out. I paint quite thinly and layer quite a lot, so that might be where the translucent nature that you're pointing out comes from.

The work you made in 2022 reflects the turbulent experience many people endured during the pandemic. What themes are you focusing on in your current body of work?

I think a lot about enlightenment, spiritual and physical expansion, rebirth, and the material limits of our human vessels; the tension that exists in the ambient space surrounding our life events; what makes something a 'blessing'; what makes something a 'curse'.

I consider ritual and myriad esoteric traditions from around the world—myth, religion, philosophy, magic and the occult in Islam, chaos and fractal theory—as metaphors for the natural world. My studio is a very exciting place at the moment.

Many of your works feature nude female figures. What do these bodies represent in your work?

The paintings are autobiographical in nature. My human experience is filtered through many lenses and rendered as allegory.

Each figure is an archetype representing something: truth, fundamental imperfection, disease, or grief. Often the same archetypes will reappear in different paintings and narratives arise organically from how each archetype relates to the other.

My relationship with these archetypes is changing at the moment as my narratives cannot easily be contained within seven characters. Many more are appearing in new works that defy categorisation.

What does a typical day in the studio look like?

A studio day is always characterised by long hours. Anything less than consistent ten-hour days starts affecting me negatively—I lose balance and rhythm in the rest of my life and become slightly unbearable to be around.

Sometimes most of my day will be spent on painting, other times it'll mostly be reading, researching, and writing. I earnestly believe in maintaining myself as a perpetual student. Every day should have large periods of study and deep work. I am happiest that way.

What is next for you?

I'm showing work at EXPO Chicago (13–16 April 2023) and the Green Family Art Foundation in Dallas in April. In May, I have a group show, Inner Matter (6 May–17 June 2023), opening at Galerie LJ in Paris.

I have a solo exhibition with Nicodim Gallery in Los Angeles as well as some work at Frieze Seoul, both opening in September, and a residency with Gallery 1957 at the Mandrake Hotel in London during Frieze Week in October.

I'm particularly excited about a solo presentation of my works for Art Dubai in March 2024, the majority of which I'll be working on back home in Karachi. —[O]